Thus far, I have explored how the drowned have ontological salience. I have worked to locate the drowned in varied elemental and especially in liquid geographies. In the process, I have tried to unsettle their absence, silence, and abjection to foster recognition respect and posthumous dignity. Thus far, too, the drowned whose stories I tell died because of others whose actions were based in or shaped by despairing, superstitious, avaricious, colonizing, or militaristic conditions. I have contemplated what it might take to submerge a baby in a ditch, swim a witch in a muddy pond, throw people overboard from a ship, shoot custodians of Country in a river, or fail to protect those seeking safe passage or the rule of law. Those entanglements might be framed as hydroimperial and hydrosocial—terms that suggest the drowned are also, always, of the more-than-human world, as are we all. The more-than-human is an idea underpinning this chapter, in which my goal is to reflect on planet water—the future of Earth under anthropogenic climate change and sea level rise. I first consider the power of myth by reference to the cosmic ocean, the great flood, and stories of destruction and renewal. I then reflect on how those stories gain expression now in a keystone document by the International Panel on Climate Change that serves both as a worlding text and an object lesson on what else might need to be done to recognize the drowned both specifically and ontologically.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Inundated: Planet Water?

  • Elaine Stratford

摘要

Thus far, I have explored how the drowned have ontological salience. I have worked to locate the drowned in varied elemental and especially in liquid geographies. In the process, I have tried to unsettle their absence, silence, and abjection to foster recognition respect and posthumous dignity. Thus far, too, the drowned whose stories I tell died because of others whose actions were based in or shaped by despairing, superstitious, avaricious, colonizing, or militaristic conditions. I have contemplated what it might take to submerge a baby in a ditch, swim a witch in a muddy pond, throw people overboard from a ship, shoot custodians of Country in a river, or fail to protect those seeking safe passage or the rule of law. Those entanglements might be framed as hydroimperial and hydrosocial—terms that suggest the drowned are also, always, of the more-than-human world, as are we all. The more-than-human is an idea underpinning this chapter, in which my goal is to reflect on planet water—the future of Earth under anthropogenic climate change and sea level rise. I first consider the power of myth by reference to the cosmic ocean, the great flood, and stories of destruction and renewal. I then reflect on how those stories gain expression now in a keystone document by the International Panel on Climate Change that serves both as a worlding text and an object lesson on what else might need to be done to recognize the drowned both specifically and ontologically.