Unfolding Senses of Water: Stories from People Working with Water

Abstract

Current techno-economic and political mechanisms have so far shown their limitations in water governance. This calls for new ways of understanding human-water interactions, changes in the aquatic environment and of taking action to restore water bodies and prevent further deterioration. The premise of the article is that every person has a sense of water, which builds through and around diverse ways of knowing, feeling and doing. People working with water have a unique sense of water that guides their actions towards using, managing and protecting water resources. The article aims to demonstrate this diversity and to explore how sense of water develops among those working with water. Using a narrative approach, the study describes five cases and explores 1) how the workers use their sense of water, 2) the connection of sense of water to place and community, and 3) how the work influences the workers’ sense of water. The results increase understanding on human-water interactions by identifying different themes that link knowing and feeling with doing, by showing how knowledge and emotions act as drivers for the work, and how water’s role in each work – water as an object, partner or context – shapes different senses of water.