Coming Wednesday: ‘Hydrologies of Dispossession’, online lecture by Ifor Duncan

Join this free online presentation by Ifor Duncan titled ‘Hydrologies of Dispossession’ coming Wednesday 10 december, at 16:30 CET (local time 18:30). The lecture is hosted by Salt, cultural institution based in Istanbul, Turkey.

Rivers are on the frontline of environmental devastation. Facing manifold threats—pollution, drought, displacement, and dispossession—communities living with freshwater environments are central to the pursuit of ecological justice.

In his presentation, Ifor Duncan will reflect on the relationship between rivers and power in cases where the very ways of knowing and managing water have become deadly—a process he has termed “necro-hydrology.” Investigating how water has been weaponized, he will share insights from his research on the Evros/Meriç/Maritsa border between Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria; the construction of the Hidroituango megadam and its intersections with past and ongoing paramilitary violence along the Cauca River in Colombia; and the confluence of the Wisła, Soła, and Przemsza rivers in Poland as both an infrastructure and a processual archive of genocide.

The presentation will also reflect on collaborative and interdisciplinary practice-led methods for researching the confluent politics of riverine ecologies, such as submerged moving image and sound, interviews, and textual analysis. Duncan will approach these cases through relational and anti-colonial perspectives to redress water’s abstraction, dehistoricization, and universalization by terrestrially biased and resource-focused colonial sciences.

Organized as part of Water Assemblies, this presentation will be held in English and is open to everyone. The program will take place online via Zoom. Click here to register.