Changing Water Cultures

Project Information

CANALS

Grant agreement ID: 895008

DOI

10.3030/895008

Project terminated on 28 February 2022

EC signature date 13 March 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 28 February 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 202 158,72

EU contribution

€ 202 158,72

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CANALS (Changing Water Cultures)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In a nutshell, the objectives of “Changing Water Cultures” (CANALS) are expressed in the ambiguity of its project title: (a) It studies how water cultures are changing (due to climate change) and (b) it has set its aim to changing water cultures (to better adapt to climate change). My case study is the German city of Reutlingen that in recent years has been heavily impacted by extreme weather events.

CANALS aims to develop transdisciplinary ways of convening an ‘extended peer community’ of water stakeholders for policymaking. Climate change (changes in average temperature, precipitation, and weather intensity) is putting significant stress on EU water infrastructures. The project claims that current understandings of water, climate, and infrastructures struggle to address emerging uncertainties due to climate change. Dominant technocratic systems of knowledge and practice supporting water infrastructures in Europe are being undermined by rapid changes, which introduce new uncertainties and contest old securities. Novel ways of mobilising knowledge for water infrastructures are needed that readmits communities’ diverse cultural interactions with water to promote adaptive decision-making. So, a proper regard for water cultures is required. Under the project’s perspective, cultures are considered to be both practices and systems of symbols and meanings.

CANALS’ water culture perspective recognises the hybrid character of water, which exists independently of humans and at the same time is culturally enacted through human practices. It also sees infrastructures as social practices connecting people and objects in the world in socio-material relations. A water-cultural perspective thus better captures the complex processes around water infrastructures in the context of challenges posed by climate change. Adopting an innovative water culture perspective, CANALS will first make visible the spectrum of knowledges and practices used by different social groups for maintaining infrastructures. Going further, the project will develop transdisciplinary ways of convening an ‘extended peer community’ of water stakeholders, to together appraise the quality of their water knowledges for policymaking.

Due to the Norwegian and German Covid regulations that were in place when the project began, the start of the empirical work had to be postponed and only started in January 2022. Despite the early termination of the project (due to personal reasons), the empirical research is ongoing and will continue.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first objective of the project is to analyse which representations of water and climate underlie existing water infrastructures and how they are challenged by current climate change. Adapting the work plan to the Covid situation and getting an assessment from the relevant Norwegian ethics body consumed a lot of project time in the first months. After a confirmation that the project is in line with Norwegian data protection legislation was issued 5 January 2022, the interviews with decisionmakers in the city of Reutlingen started. So far, about 20 interviews have been conducted with different stakeholders here. To analyse first interview data, I organised a workshop, also open to members of the CALENDARS team and additional members of my host institution, the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT). CALENDARS is an ERC-funded research project at SVT; methodologically, both projects share similar research interests. To provide further input on qualitative social research, an expert in the field was invited to discuss how to analyse our findings more rigorously. The workshop was specifically tailored to the needs of CANALS and CALENDARS.

The second main objective is to mobilise water cultures for climate change adaptation. As such, this work is scheduled for a later period when most interviews have taken place, i.e. autumn 2022. The main outcome in this WP so far has been the development of a concept for running a transdisciplinary workshop that can be used to extend the peer community that classifies and evaluates relevant knowledge for action and develops new knowledge. This concept is currently being further refined together with the stakeholders in the city of Reutlingen. In the development and implementation of the workshop, I am supported by a facilitator with great experience in the implementation of transdisciplinary participation processes (Daniel Oppold, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Sciences, Potsdam). CANALS’ ambition is to develop an innovative workshop concept that other European municipalities can adapt. Despite the early termination of the project, the workshops will be held in late 2022 and early 2023.

Most of the work in CANALS consisted of writing academic papers on conceptual perspectives and related methodological challenges. Dissemination and exploitation in CANALS was also happening via teaching. I developed a teaching format addressing different groups of learners (pupils, students, teachers) and started to produce teaching materials. A first course was held on 5/6 April 2022 at the University of Zürich (CH) and was developed in collaboration with two Swiss teachers. It is specifically targeted towards teachers as a crucial group of multipliers. The concept will be further tested with different target groups. First results will be published in an edited volume on education for sustainable development (Meisch et al., 2022) and in a conference proceedings volume (Meisch & Hofer-Krucker Valderama, 2022).

One of the main objectives of CANALS was to increase my skills in qualitative social science methods. For this reason, I organised a methods workshop and invited an expert in the field. This event served to deepen my theoretical and conceptual understanding of these methods and supported me in applying them to my research.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By the time this project ends, the main scientific achievements beyond the state of the art are:

(a) a deeper understanding of water infrastructures and their interlinkage with other infrastructures (food, energy) and how they are upheld and maintained by culturally embedded social practices (Bruns et al, 2022)
(b) a systematic review of research on the dynamic interaction of institutional cultures and climate change (Bremer et al., 2022);
(c) a systematisation of and critical reflection on the challenges in extending peer communities to better appraise the knowledge for climate governance (Meisch et al, 2022) and
(d) an analysis of deeper underlying causes of the political contestation over climate change (Hanusch & Meisch, 2022).

The project results will be useful for researchers studying water cultures and how they are affected by climate change. The concept of water cultures will provide an analytical framework to explore how water infrastructures are culturally co-produced by social practices; knowledge of which will be crucial for urban climate adaptation. Another potential user group are urban water policymakers. CANALS addresses the often-made observation of a gap between the information provided by municipal bodies, the legal obligation to precautionary self-provision and the level of knowledge of citizens. The workshop concept to be developed can provide urban decision-makers with a tool to understand and address this gap.

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