Towards Hydrocitizenship: Introduction and overview

Basic facts

Arts and Humanities Research Council, Connected Communities Programme; Communities, Cultures, Environments and Sustainability Large Grant

“Towards hydrocitizenship. Connecting communities with and through responses to interdependent, multiple water issues”.

(42 months inc extension; £1,479,183; start 01 05 2014).

This large grant has 28 partners which include artists, community groups and co-applicant researchers from the universities of; the West of England; Manchester; Brighton; Bristol; Middlesex; Aberystwyth; Bangor; Newcastle.

3 meta-aims

1, investigating how local communities are embedded in the hydrosphere (the totality of interconnected water forms, cycles, systems, issues, conflicts), and using arts and humanities centred interdisciplinary research (AHIR) to explore and develop community resilience in eco-social terms.

The project addresses multiple, interrelated water issues (floods, drought, water quality, biodiversity, ground water, catchment management) considered within community contexts. Interconnected water issues are some of the most challenging in the UK and beyond, particularly in the context of climate change.

2, through these lenses, interrogating a series of questions about communities, citizenship, rights and conflicts. Interconnecting water issues offer powerful exemplars of connections within communities (e.g. shared flood risk, shared water assets); and connections between human (and non-human) communities (e.g. upstream-downstream communities in catchments, supply and waste systems).

Frequently these connections manifest themselves in terms of conflict, disconnect, fragmentation and relative advantage/disadvantage. There is a need to foster greater interconnected social and ecological resilience through enhanced understandings of the eco-social production of communities, envisioned as multiple, interleaving formations of practice which combine topographical (place) and topological (network) spatialities.

Can’t represent the whole project or project team here – full details at www.hydrocitizenship.com

3, by using innovative AHIR co-working procedures and showing how they can lead in reshaping eco-social formations in community contexts, by enabling participating groups and individuals to reflect creatively on how they imagine and practise their relationships with the water environment and with their various neighbours (human/non-human). We will test and reflect upon how AHIR can study questions of cultural value, community identity and practices of place; unearth and reflect on local history and heritage; and frame critical, layered, narratives of these.

Participatory creative arts such as performance, storytelling, visual art, creative social design, film and other media will be used as vehicles for engaging communities and reflecting existing understandings, and for engineering new affective relations and possibilities (e.g. mobile performances moving along river catchments to highlight upstream-downstream connectivities across socio-economic boundaries).

Hydrocitizenship is a deliberate ‘sub-set’ of ecological citizenship

We are all – quite obviously - ecological – e.g.

• Gases in and out • Food in and out • Energy in and out • Water in and out • Our biome

But

a) this ecological embeddedness is denied to us by modernity b) The ecological footprint of the modern human is opaque, globalised,

disastrously unsustainable - new forms of self, citizenship and community are needed

Hydrocitizenship because…

A jump for modern citizenship to ecological citizenship is very hard to imagine at the moment – is water a step - and a good step in itself?

• Our ecologicalness through water is vivid and palpable • Water is an underpinning process of ecological citizenship • We are faced, at a range of levels, with a series of pressing water issues • Water is a very topical area of academic, cultural, artistic and activist attention

at the moment

A water zeitgeist in art, literature and poetry ? Over 100 books on our book Wiki

Why? – a reaching out to our immediate ecologies, water is distinctive force of nature – culturally, politically, ecologically vibrant?

To be a Hydrocitizen is, at its most basic, to be aware of: • your water consumption/use habits • your impacts on water • Your impacts on others – human and non-human – through water • Aware of other human and non-human rights to, and needs for, waters in

different forms – supply, amenity etc • To understand local cultures of water including their history and ecology

Examples - plugholes and toilets

Wet wipes pharmaceuticals X

Shared agendas with Environment Agency, local

authorities and water companies in all areas. Local

and national stakeholder boards

The three Ps / look it up!

Water as a city indicator species (like children)

If a city is working well for water it needs to work well in lots of ways

“we believe a deeper connection to local water bodies can bring a new cycle of community hope and energy that will lead to healthier urban waters, improved public health, strengthened local businesses, and new jobs, as well as expanded educational, recreational, housing, and social opportunities.” (Urban Waters Federal Partnership 2011: online).

Four Case Studies

Mostly driven by the expertise and previous knowledge of the research team

3 Urban; 1 rural

Bristol Borth Tal-Y-Bont Shipley/Leeds Lee Valley

Each case study has • an academic team • Lead creative partner(s) • Lead community partner

22% of the budget goes to non HEI partners

Each team has evolved their own methods and foci in local contexts of communities, catchment, culture and infrastructure

Bristol

<Borth Tal-y-bont

Lee Valley

Shipley

Basic methodological approach

Interdisciplinary art and humanities

• Scoping studies (issues and partners) • Conversations • Co-design • Creative interventions (mapping, film, etc) • Emergent outcomes • Integration and synthesis

Getting ‘out and about’

Narratives

• Finding narratives (historic and contemporary) in the local landscape • Embellishing them • Linking them • Sharing them • (Challenging them) • Planting new narrative seeds

Each area has own website Social media etc

“Social justice activists, artists and project leaders all over the world [ ] are insisting on the power that stories have to generate hope and engagement, personal dignity and active citizenship, the pride of identity, and the humility of human connectedness. [ ] The beginning of the twenty-first century is an historical moment in which narrative is more broadly recognised than ever as a significant, simple, crucial vehicle for reawakening, disseminating and sustain social justice impulses (Solonger et al 2008:1) Social justice activists, artists and project leaders all over the world [ ] are insisting on the power that stories have to generate hope and engagement, personal dignity and active citizenship, the pride of identity, and the humility of human connectedness. [ ] The beginning of the twenty-first century is an historical moment in which narrative is more broadly recognised than ever as a significant, simple, crucial vehicle for reawakening, disseminating and sustain social justice impulses” (Solonger et al 2008:1)

Ecologies of Narratives

Cities/landscapes as a weave of narratives (inc memories, media)

Trying to seed and weave new narrative threads into that ecology

Making partnerships Narrative grafting (e.g. on festivals)

Bristol

Emergent themes

• Tides • Eels (ecology) • Daylighting • Infrastructure and care

Overarching theme - Hidden Waters/Ecologies

RA Katherine Jones UWE

Main creative partner Nova Multiple community partners – see local website

Community events Co-produced

Borth Tal – y - Bont

Coastal village – at risk; climate change storm surge; catchment issues; but also water culture history and assets

Key partners – EcoDyfi and Creu-ad – multiple commissioned micro-artist interventions

Four seasonal gatherings for the community and local artists, to catch and develop conversations

Get a sense of issues – lots of site specific events in films, singing, performance

10 plus community art projects emerged; mapped in interactive digital platform designed Map Dwr by RA / artist Tom Payne (Aber / BSU)

Film, walks, song, site specific, digital mapping

Snaphot(s)

Catchment, agriculture and community - artist Fion Jones ( grew up on local farm)

Shipley Multi-Story Water RA Lyze Dudley embedded in Kirkgate Community Centre – multiple ongoing programmes of engagement in the local area – Partner Canal Connections. Also performance pieces by Steve Bottoms Performance based –

2. Towards Hydro-Citizenship (2014-17) From the blog

In 2014, we began a new phase of the project, with our activities in Shipley and the Aire valley becoming one of four ‘case study’ areas in a wider AHRC initiative called “Towards Hydro-Citizenship” (which also has teams working in Bristol, London, and mid-Wales). The longer time-frame of this project enabled us to attempt extended engagement with certain communities. In Shipley we have partnered with Kirkgate Centre (a voluntary-sector organisation with Council-mandated responsibility for community development work in the vicinity) in working closely with several neighbourhoods.

We have been particularly active in the Higher Coach Road area, where we have built on work previously initiated during the 2012-13 project. We have mounted a number of events such as our Meadow Meander (2015) and Welcome to Our Airedale Home (2016), and conversations with residents have led, in part, to the establishment of the Higher Coach Road Residents Group, which now actively advocates for this distinctive riverside community.

Engagement with the Dockfield area — sandwiched between the river and canal, to the east of Bradford Beck — also began in 2015 but was then hampered by a series of personal and logistical issues (including Kirkgate having its mandate for this area taken away by Bradford Council… don’t ask). But we’ve built up lots of knowledge about the area, and some good relationships with residents, which we’re developing this year (2017) with events such as our new play This Island’s Mine.

Lee Valley (inc london Olympic park) Cultural/governance mapping RA Ozlem Edizel (Middlesex), Jo Orchard-Webb and Mary Gearey (Brigton)

Artist led community water projects - partner Lorraine Leeson – tidal turbine. Green energy prize

Walking River Narrative – Partner Artist Simon Read

Working with and through partners in a range of water related issues, locations events

Online community – approx. 310 members, mmasses of text and images

Connecting people, and nature, with water and through water (holistic) Academics Artists Communities

Eco-art / art-geography History; performance; theatre studies; social, cultural, physical geography; sociology; planning; design;

Summary of ‘methods’

• Archives • Humour • Site specific • Street theatre • Walking • Mapping • Conversations • Social Media • Film / animation (Vimeo and YouTube Channels) • Photos • Ad hoc ethnography • Installations • Being part of bigger events • GoPro cameras

Example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u79gnQD39x8

YouTube Channel: 3024 views - 26 videos (needs tidying)

Twitter: 968 Followers