Thinking like a wetland

Dillon, Patrick; Gross, Philip; Irvine, Richard; Price, Valerie Coffin; Staddon, Chad

Abstract

This article is an invitation to therapeutic deconstruction: a call to reconsider our assumptions about land, water and the relationship between the wet and the dry. It takes the form of a dialogue in which poetry (Gross) and visual art (Price) prompts, probes and challenges reflections offered by a natural resource economist (Staddon), a cultural ecologist (Dillon) and an anthropologist (Irvine). From our multiple perspectives, we explore the wetland as a site of common interest, and through different approaches to the thought experiment of what it might mean to ‘think like a wetland’ we seek to engage with the materiality of these places. We ask what it means to be a part of a wetland, not simply treating these habitats as resources to be managed, but as sites of dwelling that have agency in their own right.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2012
• Journal: Journal of Arts and Communities
• Print ISSN: 1757-1936
• Publisher: Intellect
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 100-126
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jaac.4.1-2.100_1
• Keywords: ecology, environment, landscape, resources, water, wetlands
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/941472
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jaac.4.1-2.100_1