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On the agency of rivers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2014

Extract

Veronica Strang has written an excellent account of the fluid relationships between humans and the non-human materiality of water. The very idea of anthropology of water challenges our commonly held assumptions about water being just a material or economic resource (or, conversely, about anthropology being just the study of people). It holds that water is socially, politically and ritually constituted, while acknowledging at the same time that water also has an existence outside the human domain. There is much to agree with and to be inspired by in the paper, which is especially strong on ‘fluidity and consistency at every level of human–non-human engagement’ (p. 133). By virtue of the emphasis on that specific aspect, however, there are some aspects which are underemphasized, and it is these which I focus on in my comments.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

Edgeworth, M., 2011: Fluid pasts. Archaeology of flow, London.Google Scholar
McPhee, J., 1989: The control of nature, New York.Google Scholar
Ripper, S., and Cooper, L. (eds), 2009: The Hemington bridges. The excavation of three medieval bridges at Hemington Quarry, near Castle Donnington, Leicestershire, Leicester.Google Scholar