Dear colleagues
We are cordially inviting contributions from people working on
water-related issues to our panel *Water and social relations: Wittfogel's
legacy and hydrosocial futures *(
http://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4220) at this year's
*EASA* Biennial Conference in Milan, Italy, July 20th-23rd (
http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2016/index.shtml).
Echoing the conference theme, our panel discusses Karl Wittfogel's classic
concern - the links between water and social relations - in light of recent
ethnographic material.
The *deadline* for abstract submissions is *February 15th*, 2016. Please
submit your proposals online, following the first link in this email.
*Panel abstract*
In 1957, Karl Wittfogel published his influential book Oriental Despotism:
A Comparative Study of Total Power, in which he argued that the development
of centralised hierarchies in mainly Asian societies was triggered by their
control of water. Wittfogel wrote as a historian, but his work found strong
resonances also in anthropology. While the book's analysis has been
criticised, the understanding that the governance of water and the
governance of people go hand in hand continues to inform discussions in
anthropology and related fields. Recent studies concerning water-related
political ecology, hydro symbolism, and the distribution and circulation of
water echo some of Wittfogel's legacy.
This panel will explore Wittfogel's core concern - the links between water
and social relations - in the context of current ethnographies. It will
discuss various anthropological approaches to water's relationality and the
forms it may take, for instance in drinking water provision, flood control,
agriculture, navigation, hydroelectricity, and conservation.
We seek contributions that examine social and political relations in ways
that take their tensions and correspondences with water seriously, as
Wittfogel did half a century ago, but in a less monolithic and totalising
manner, with careful attention to the situated, partial, multiple and
open-ended encounters that (un)make these links. We further challenge
contributors to sketch out to what extent the water-related sociality in
their ethnographies could be conceived of as 'hydrosocial', i.e. to what
extent watery and social relations are mutually constitutive, or even
coterminous. Despite Wittfogel's concern with Asian societies, this panel
has no regional focus.
If you have further *questions*, please do not hesitate to contact the
conveners Lukas Ley ([log in to unmask]) and Franz Krause (
[log in to unmask]).
In case you are keen to contribute to this discussion, but cannot make it
to the EASA conference, you might want to consider proposing a paper to our
'sister panel' at this year's conference of the Association of Social
Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA); see
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4431.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Lukas (Anthropology, University of Toronto) and
Franz (School of Humanities, Tallinn University)
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