Hydrosemiotic Entanglements in the (Sub-)Arctic: Scores from the Wetness Field

Hydrosemiosis refers to the sign processes of water, to the watery entanglements that produce meaning. Natural scientists studying watery realms are involved in hydrosemiosis, but hydrosemiosis is also present in everyday lives, as our watery bodies navigate material-semiotic entanglements with other living and nonliving bodies of water. In this article, we propose an iteration of hydrosemiosis as a feminist practice, and speculate a Guild of Hydrosemiosis as a para-institution that de- and reinstitutionalizes water in the embodied realm. The Guild enquires on scientific practices, but approaches them from the edges that line the techno-scientific center, making meaning collectively and challenging institutional hierarchies. Accompanied by sound recordings as portals to knowing through the sensuous, this article meditates on (1) scientific snow meltwater sampling practices in Finnish Lapland, and (2) the Guild’s Leakage Archive that shadows and parallels scientific understandings of water’s messages with stories of watery (dis)connection.