Thinking with salmon about rain tanks: commons as intra-actions

The construction of California's large waterworks was inextricably entangled with a discourse of progress through technoscientific control over unruly rivers. In recent years, a turn towards decentralised governance and diversified infrastructure has produced alternate discourses of human-ecolo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Local environment 2015-05, Vol.20 (5), p.581-599
Main Author: Woelfle-Erskine, Cleo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
agential realism
California
Collaboration
commons
Discourse
Governance
Indigenous knowledge
Interdependence
local knowledge
Precipitation
Rain
rainwater harvesting
Realism
Salmon
salmon recovery
Salmonidae
Stream flow
U.S.A
Water
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Summary:The construction of California's large waterworks was inextricably entangled with a discourse of progress through technoscientific control over unruly rivers. In recent years, a turn towards decentralised governance and diversified infrastructure has produced alternate discourses of human-ecological collaboration and water as a commons. I investigate how water is understood by residents along Salmon Creek (Sonoma Co., CA) engaged in efforts to increase streamflow and restore salmon runs. Drawing on Barad's theory of agential realism, I find that living with springs and rainwater harvesting cisterns enacts intra-actions that increase residents' sense of interdependence with other human and nonhuman watershed residents. I argue that commons frameworks represent a coherent alternative to state and market frameworks of water governance.
ISSN:1354-9839
1469-6711
DOI:10.1080/13549839.2014.969212