Environmental Presents and Futures: Why History Matters

Temporal understandings are critically needed to evaluate how today’s ecological challenges are outcomes of past actions, aspirations and politics, as well as how lessons from the past can generate visions for the future. 

Historical perspectives on landscape and environmental change are essential to understanding how landscapes have been shaped over long periods of interaction between people, climate, ecosystems, knowledge and technology. Without historical sensitivity, it is easy to misinterpret current conditions as ‘natural’ or permanent and, in doing so, to overlook our path dependencies. 

As contemporary environmental challenges require new and engaged ways of thinking about new and old problems, we invite several scholars working on land-water histories to share their methodological and analytical thinking as well as opportunities for collaborative working.

The workshop will be followed by a reception in the hall. 

Programme

09:00 – 09:15                   Arrival and registration

09:15 – 09:30                   Welcome from Ciara Kierans

09:30 – 10:15                   Conceptual framings 1 by Etienne Benson 

10:15 – 11:00                   Conceptual framings 2 by Anna-Katharina Wöbse

11:00 – 11:15                   Coffee break

11:15 – 12:00                   Conceptual framings 3 by Briony McDonagh

12:00 – 13:00                   Lunch

13:00 – 13:15                   Welcome from Heather Swanson

13:15 – 13:45                   Historical case 1 by Nina Toudal Jessen

13:45 – 14:15                   Historical case 2 by Pablo Aguilera Del Castillo

14:15 – 14:45                   Historical case 3 by Pierre Du Plessis

14:45 – 15:15                   Historical case 4 by Leonardo Aranda Brito

15:15 – 15:30                   Coffee break

15:30 – 16:30                   Discussion

16:45 – 18:30                   Reception

List of speakers

• Etienne Benson: Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Briony McDonagh: Professor of Environmental Humanities and UK national lead for the COAST-R Network Plus
• Anna-Katharina Wöbse: Chair for Economic, Social and Environmental History, University of Freiburg.
• Nina Toudal Jessen: Historian, Filterscapes Project, Aarhus University
• Pablo Aguilera Del Castillo: Anthropologist, Filterscapes Project, Aarhus University.
• Pierre du Plessis: Anthropologist, Beyond-the-Hoof project, Aarhus University
• Leonardo Aranda: Director of Media Lab Mx. Researcher working across Art, Technology, and Politics.

Etienne Benson

The History of the Earth Sciences beyond Epistemology: Three Takes on the 20th-century ‘Revolution’ in Fluvial Geomorphology

In this paper, I present three takes on the shift toward quantitative analyses of rivers and riverine landscapes in the 20th century, which some observers have described as a scientific ‘revolution'. The first take focuses on epistemological shifts internal to the scientific community; the second focuses on the social and political contexts of those shifts; the third focuses on the embodied relationships and forms of collective life with which they were associated. I argue that the history of the earth sciences needs to move beyond epistemology to examine the world- and environment-making effects of scientific practice.

Anna-Katharina Wöbse

The Beauty of Mud

Following a long period of discreditation, swamps and wetlands began to be reassessed during the 1960s. Previously regarded as unhealthy and impoverished landscapes, they increasingly came to be understood instead as environments providing a range of valuable ecosystem services. This paper examines this transformation from the perspectives of environmental history and the history of human–animal relations.

Briony McDonagh

Water Histories and Futures: Co-producing Knowledge and Action in an Age of Uncertainty

How might understanding water's pasts help communities respond to an uncertain environmental future? Drawing on the UKRI-funded Risky Cities project and a wider constellation of historically informed participatory projects, this paper reflects on the value of collaboration between universities, practitioners and communities in generating knowledge and action around water challenges. Focusing on flooding, coastal erosion and drought, it explores how histories and stories of living with water can help build resilience and preparedness. By connecting past experiences with present concerns and future possibilities, such approaches support more inclusive forms of water governance and foster stronger relationships between people, place and environment. In an era of climate uncertainty, the paper considers how participatory, historically grounded research can contribute not only to new understandings, but also to the collective capacities needed to live better with water.

Nina Toudal Jessen

Dry Land or Wet Soils? Habitual Resistance in Agricultural Land Use Transformation.

Current Danish climate policy relies heavily on rewetting of carbon-rich soils currently in agricultural use. These soils, however, have long been understood as environmentally problematic when cultivated. This paper presents recent work on inertia and path dependencies in agricultural land-use transformations. In my presentation, I will explore the schisms between dry lands and wet soils by drawing on the historical transformation of agricultural land through state-supported drainage and its connected technologies. To do so, I present examples from my work on soil analysis and soil improvement in Denmark during the 20th century and use them to discuss categorisations of soils an ongoing practice in Danish agricultural science and policy that has shaped both the physical landscape and its use and administration. From this, I argue that a habitual resistance to wet soils played a crucial part in both understanding and transforming the Danish landscape. Hence, I will reflect on the role of habitual resistance to water as a key for understanding present rewetting efforts.

Pablo Aguilera Del Castillo

Excavating the Aquifer Archives: On the Historical Reemergence of a Subterranean Object

Framed by global concern about aquifer depletion and pollution across countries, this paper probes the historical emergence of the Yucatec ‘subterranean’ and its progressive transformation into a technoscientific object of management known as an ‘aquifer’ in southeastern Mexico during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Based on ethnographic and archival research at the state archives (AGEY) in Mérida, Yucatán, this work considers four different moments in time to interrogate the historical emergence of the Yucatec Karst Aquifer System––the largest and the most challenging aquifer to make sense of in Mexico––as a site of environmental, social, and territorial differentiation in the region. Through an examination of different kinds of subterranean mapping, classification, and representation found in the archives, I will analyze the transformation of subterranean land into an object of environmental management today. Overall, I will also reflect on key insights that emerge from the historization of the Yucatec Karst Aquifer System and its critical place in the region's ongoing water debates. 

Pierre Du Plessis

Eco-Reverberations: On the Persistent Effects of Historical Infrastructures on a Desert Landscape

Understanding contemporary environmental questions requires deeper analyses of the convergence of multiple historical trajectories and temporal interruptions that continue to have material effects on landscapes today. Focusing on the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, this paper argues that particular infrastructures —that emerged with the commercial cattle industry in the mid-20^th century to facilitate the export of beef to Europe— not only interrupted wildlife movements and habitats but initiated a series of social and ecological transformations that continue to reverberate across the desert landscape. I frame these persistent effects as “ecological reverberations” that highlight how histories do not simply sediment but remain active forces in shifting landscape configurations.

Leonardo Aranda Brito

Where Has the Lake Gone?

The project “Where Has the Lake Gone?” tells the story of Mexico City from the perspective of its various bodies of water. More specifically, the project explores the potential use of experimental methodologies such as digital cartography, storytelling, and other participatory methods of sensing to recreate what Mexican architect Loreta Castro Reguera has called an ‘image of water,’ understood as a revitalized imaginary of the water that gives presence and historicity to our relationship with water, and that then enables new forms of collective agency over the current conflict on water politics in Mexico City. 

Organisers

Ciara Kierans, PI Filterscapes Project, Aarhus University 

Heather Swanson, CI Filterscapes Project, Aarhus University

Participation

All are welcome but registration is required. 

Register for the workshop here

Register for the reception here