Conferences - Thinking with Rivers

I've just returned from a week in Barcelona where I attended the POLLEN - Political Ecology Network Conference. I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to co-convene a panel with my colleague, friend and fellow rivery thinker, Nikki Paterson (Uni of York). Our panel was titled, 'Flowing Together - the potential of revitalising human-riverine relations'. We created this in response to both our own research and the wider re-imagining of human-riverine relations currently occurring in different contexts. We wanted to recognise this, as well as provide more space for conversations around watery more-than-human relations at POLLEN.

Myself and Nikki presenting on our panel, 'Flowing Together - the potential of revitalising human-riverine relations'

Together, we hosted five talks exploring the potential of revitalising human-riverine relations across a variety of people, places & rivers. We spoke alongside Ella Hubbard, Julian Dobson, Carlota Houart , Samuel Pinjon, Suzanne Husky, and Nada Schroer who reflected on their work in rivers across England, Ecuador, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. 🌀

We collectively shared stories from the water, stories of multispecies justice, water ghosts, beavers, sewage and swimmers. Nikki and I reflected on the experiences of river swimmers across the Rivers Derwent, Wharfe and Thames. We explored how swimmers contend with various flows of pollution and what this means for their practices of care for river worlds. It has been so inspiring to think with the rivers of our fellow speakers, from the Piatúa in Ecuador to the Don in Northern England and the Maas in the Netherlands. 🌱

As well as a week of connecting with colleagues and learning from a wonderful array of disciplines and contexts, I also managed to fit in a couple of delightful ocean swims, find some beautiful watery art & encounter a river from the sky! I am now back in the UK where I am returning to the fourth and final phase of my swim-along interviews with Thames swimmers, from source to sea.

Flowing across rivers - encountering a river from the sky as I travelled home.