Where Land and Water Meet: Conceptualizing, Probing and Mapping the Water-Land Continuum
How can water (in the form of, for instance, sea, rivers, lakes, glaciers and rainfall) and land (comprising cities, ports, farmland, mountains and islands) meet? What if they mingle, to the degree that they become inseparable? How can they be kept apart? We invite contributions focusing on subjective and sentient experiences of land-water relationships that can provide answers to questions such as these. How can spatially oriented research methodologies provide new ways to map, analyse and theorize the land-water continuum, from both contemporary and long-term perspectives? How can we theorize this from complementary disciplinary perspectives?
A growing number of anthropological (Krause 2022), geographical (Lahiri-Dut 2014) and spatial studies (Di Carlo et al. 2020) challenge the idea of land and water as analytical binaries and foster new conceptualizations of the water-land interface. This has drawn attention to, among others, porosity (Hein 2021), symbiosis (Jansen & Hein, 2023) and wetness (da Cunha 2018). Ethnographic research, in addition, indicates that in some ontological contexts water and land cannot be named or understood without the other (Cortesi 2021). Relations among humans, as well as between humans and non-humans typically encompass both spheres. Geographers have developed GIS-based tools and methods for map-making and analysis that have great potential for disciplines in the social sciences (Vaughan 2018). For example, in digital humanities, GIS-based mapping methodologies are increasingly being integrated into research that collects and projects original archival data, such as cartographic sources. These approaches touch closely upon the lived geospatial experience of particular communities and localities (Bodenhamer, Corrigan and Harris 2015).
For this workshop we invite original papers based on research engaging the water-land continuum. We are notably interested in multidisciplinary perspectives that encompass qualitative and quantitative, heuristic and data-driven methodologies. This can include a critical engagement with for example actor-oriented mapping, ethnographic mapping, stakeholder mapping or other geographic mapping methodologies.
Convenors:
- Costanza Franceschini (Leiden University)
- Erik de Maaker (Leiden University)
- Maurice Harteveld (Delft University of Technology)
- Vincent Baptist (Delft University of Technology)
Discussants:
- Prof. dr. Bram Büsscher (WUR – Wageningen University & Research)
- Dr. Amit John Kurien (RV University)
Contact:
- Costanza Franceschini - c.franceschini@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Location
Delft University of Technology - Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment - Room K
(Ask reception at the main entrance for directions to Room K!)
Programme
8:30-9:00 – Arrival (tea, coffee)
9:00-9:15 - Introduction of LDE-PCF and discussants
9:15-10:30 – Session I: Mixing Mapping Methods for Dedicated Cultural Contexts
(Paper presentations + Discussion 30min., Chair: Maurice Harteveld)
- Wenjing Qiu (Leiden University) – “Dwelling in Transition: Critical Ethnographic Mapping of the Water-Land Continuum in a Waterfront Kampung of Jakarta”
- Dur-e-Shahwar Khalil (University of Antwerp) – “Remapping the Backwaters: A Historical Analysis and Research-by-Cartography of Land-Water Spaces on the Coast of Karachi”
- Stefan Dorondel (Francisc I. Rainer Institute of Anthropology Bucharest) – “Silted Waters, Stranded Ports: Sediment, Infrastructures and the State on the Danube”
10:30-11:00 Break
11:00-12:30 – Session II: Mixing Mapping Methods through Conceptual Frameworks
(ONLINE paper presentations + Discussion 30min., Chair: Erik de Maaker)
- Rebecca Hofmann (University of Freiburg) – “ ‘Islanding’ in Chuuk, FSM: Practicing the Water-Land Continuum from Colonialism to Climate Change”
- Maryam Naghibi (Delft University of Technology) and Catherine Venart (Dalhousie University) – “The Ground Between: Temporal Landscapes, Water Memory, and the Ethics of the In-Between”
- Matthew Wingfield (Stellenbosch University) – “Common(s) Futures: (Underground) Water Commoning, Small-Scale Farming, and/or the Primacy of Private Property in South Africa.
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 – Session III: Mixing Mapping Methods through Spatial Temporalities
(Paper presentations + Discussion, Chair: Vincent Baptist)
- Hadi El Hage (Delft University of Technology) – “Dissecting the Edge: Decoding the Land-Water Continuum in Port Cityscapes”
- Debojyoti Das (University of the Arts London) – “Nature and Culture: Deltas as in-between ‘Third Space’”
- Eliane Schmid (Université du Luxembourg) – “Public Urban Green Spaces to counterbalance Port City Stigmas: The Cases of Hamburg and Marseille, 1950s-1970s”
15:00-15:30 Break
15:30-16:45 – Session IV: Mixing Mapping Methods to Face Societal Challenges
(Paper presentations + Discussion, Chair: Costanza Franceschini)
- Moniek Driesse (Willem de Kooning Academie Hogeschool Rotterdam) – “The In-Between of Land and Water — Mapping Aquatic Agency and Heritage Imaginaries”
- Julia Sumarthinningrum Dahlan (Delft University of Technology) – “Contestation of Indigenous and Modern Value of Subak Landscape”
- Sridhar Subramani (Delft University of Technology) – “Beyond the Edge/ Temporal-Spatial Synergies in Floating Urbanism”
- Claudiu Forgaci (Delft University of Technology) and Francesco Nattino (Delft University of Technology) – “City River Spaces—A Method and Tool for Defining a Shared Territory”
16:45-17:00 - Wrap-up
Workshop dinner in Delft for speakers