Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice
Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering ‘unruly waters and humans’ have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water justice movements (NWJMs) proliferate: rooted, disruptive, transdisciplinary, multi-scalar coalitions that deploy alternative river–society ontologies, bridge South–North divides, and translate river-enlivening practices from local to global and vice-versa. This paper's framework conceptualizes ‘riverhood’ to engage with NWJMs and river commoning initiatives. We suggest four interrelated ontologies, situating river socionatures as arenas of material, social and symbolic co-production: ‘river-as-ecosociety’, ‘river-as-territory’, ‘river-as-subject’, and ‘river-as-movement’.
Authors
- Juan Pablo Hidalgo-Bastidas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0068-4671)
- Rutgerd Boelens (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8412-3109)
- Joan Martínez Alier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6124-539X)
- Karl M. Wantzen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2192-1883)
- Heila Lotz‐Sisitka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5193-9881)
- Bárbara Hogenboom (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0891-3176)
- Jeroen Vos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4716-8682)
- Jaime Hoogesteger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6784-0552)
- Edward H. Huijbens (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1939-1286)
- A.E.J. Wals (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4735-1126)
- K. J. Joy
- Tom Perreault (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0327-4897)
- Lena Hommes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5042-0121)
- E Swyngedouw (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7494-2824)
- Sue Jackson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6498-5783)
- Fábio de Castro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5197-3863)
- Nuria Hernández-Mora (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2487-0273)
- Karen Bakker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3522-0743)
- Tatiana Roa-Avendaño
- Denisse Roca‐Servat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2872-6471)
- Carles Sanchís Ibor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8795-2922)
- Astrid Ulloa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9349-5003)
- Arturo Escobar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6392-1726)
- Bibiana Duarte-Abadía (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4203-050X)
- Diana Suhardiman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7892-4148)
- Leila M. Harris (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1700-1902)
- Gert Jan Veldwisch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8123-281X)
- Daniele Tubino Pante de Souza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6278-7716)
- Phil Woodhouse
Institutions
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- UNC Libraries
- Published
- 2025-04-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.17615/7zwq-ps31
- Primary Topic
- Water Governance and Infrastructure
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00