Ecopolitics Traversing Waterbodies: Tales and Epistemologies Influencing Water Governance

The Berlin Museum of Natural History hosted the panel discussion “Ecopolitics Traversing Waterbodies: Tales and Epistemologies Influencing Water Governance” as part of Berlin Science Week 2024. Organized by the Ecopolitics and Just Transformations research group (EcoPol), the session brought together panelists Shyam Wuppuluri (Fellow, RIFS), Jenny García Ruales (Amazon of Rights Project, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), and Şermin Güven (Associate Member of Disaster Research Unit FU-Berlin), with moderation by Elisabeth Weydt. Over the last three years, EcoPol has used this platform to delve into diverse ecopolitical dimensions of commons, and this year’s focus on water governance highlighted often-erased narratives and marginalized epistemologies.

Organized by Tau Samper (EcoPol, RIFS), the session invited participants into a unique participatory co-writing exercise, encouraging the audience to reflect on and articulate their personal relationships with water bodies. These individual contributions were woven together to form a collective text, embodying the panel's core message: water governance is a shared narrative shaped by diverse voices, experiences, and interactions. The exercise underscored the interconnectedness of human actions and perspectives, illustrating how collective storytelling can challenge hegemonic knowledge systems and inspire just transformations in water governance.