How Water Makes Us Human

Luci Attala is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at UWTSD, Senior Fellow HEA, Green Gown Award winner (2015) for her work on sustainability, and recipient of UN Gold Star Award (2014) for work in Kenya. Attala is also the co-editor of the Materialities in Anthropology and Archaeology series.

• AcknowledgementsPrefacePart OneChapter 1: IntroductionThe direction and purpose: New MaterialitiesMateriality/Material Culture/ New MaterialitiesWhy water?People: bodies and waterAgencyChapter 2: Water Behaviours: A Brief Ethnography of WaterWhat is water?First light, then waterBeing liquid: physics, classifications, breaking the law and transformationHow can one know water? Liquid behavioursThe importance of movement: molecular sociologySolvents and solutionsBut how does water move? Circles, cycles and snakesThe earth and the airWater: the shape of life and when water is humanChapter 3: Resource or Source: How to Approach Water in the Time of Climate ChangePart TwoChapter 4: Introduction to Part TwoChapter 5: The Giriama in Kenya: Living with DroughtWater practices: rain, roofs, rivers and water basinsHeadcarrying: water shaping gendered bodiesGiriama conceptions of waterFu ha mwenga: fluidity and identityWatery identitiesIdentity solutions: blending place, power and waterMaKaya: home from homeGiriama waters and authenticity: understanding the materiality of waterChapter 6: Lanjaron, SpainSlow water: glaciers, ice and snowThe Moorish influence: hydrologersInvisible watersNot all waters are equalMineral water: healing and destructionChange: festivities and waterThe ritualChapter 7: Welsh Water: The Resourcefulness of WaterEstablishing Welsh water: then and nowThe language of waterDiscourses of delugeWater relationships, powers and controlMemories of floods and floodingWater and memory: remember TrywerynYma o hyd (Still here)Chapter 8: Concluding RemarksReferencesIndex