Special Collection: Hydrocolonialism: A New Framework for Contextualizing Water Insecurity

Anaya Crouch: Possible Futures at the Athi River, Digital Illustration, 2024

Guest Editors:
Greg Niemeyer, Department of Art Practice, University of California at Berkeley, CA, USA
Patrick Mbullo Owuor, Department of Anthropology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

The beneficence of water to humanity depends on its regulated flow. Too much is as bad as too little. In June 2022, Patrick. Owuor, an anthropologist, and Greg. Niemeyer, a media artist, conducted field research at the Thwake Dam construction site in Makueni County, Kenya. Their goal was to understand and document the dam's social impacts on local communities, especially on water security, through everyday conversations, photography, and interviews. They discovered a stark contrast between the government's projected outcome narratives, focused on global capital, and the residents' narratives, which highlighted dwindling water resources, livelihood challenges and displacement.

This divergence in water narratives is not unique to Thwake Dam but is evident in various colonial water extraction sites worldwide including Mexico and the United States as evidenced in this issue. Different parties perceive water in numerous ways, reflecting a broader issue of how power dynamics influence water governance. The residents' needs, values and worldviews often clash with governmental and industrial priorities, leading to miscommunication and ongoing conflicts.

Traditional research on water security has predominantly used a political-ecological lens, which overlooks the multidisciplinary approach needed to understand the complex interplay between natural resources, human well-being, socio-economic development, and water security. This special issue aims to bridge this gap by building on Isabel Hofmeyr's concept of "Hydrocolonialism," a framework that integrates the humanities, the social sciences, environmental science, and physical sciences with Indigenous knowledge and methodologies.

Hydrocolonialism explores water as a vector of colonialism, encompassing political control, privatization, and large-scale resource extraction. This framework examines how water is used for colonial industries, such as hydroelectric power, mining, and agriculture, often at the expense of local communities and ecosystems.

This special issue includes papers based on the Hydrocolonialism colloquium held at UC Berkeley in March 2023. Scholars, artists, and activists collaborated to address water insecurity and advocate for a comprehensive communication space. We organized the articles in a progression from ongoing water insecurities to new steps toward sustainable and equitable water futures.