Delta Life

Franz Krause is an anthropologist interested in the role of water in society and culture. He works as Junior Research Group Leader of the DELTA project at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne, Germany.

“This volume does more than assemble ethnographic studies of delta inhabitants from around the world. It weaves their experience into a sustained reflection on life in a volatile world of islands, reedbeds, coasts and swamps, a world ever made, unmade and remade, as much by spirits as by people, and as much by states and markets as by the elements of air, earth and water. Here, the lens of the delta affords rare insight into what it means to live downstream.” • Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen“Starting from the dynamic instability of river deltas as volatile biosocial entities, the contributors to this pioneering volume jolt us to rethink our ideas about coastal edges and the beings, matter, and practices through which they form and persist.” • Hugh Raffles, The New School“This is an original book that offers a variety of approaches to conceptualizing, empirically studying, and theorizing deltas as distinct sites of socio-material relations. The authors offer contrasting and complementing approaches that make the volume a useful introduction to the theme.” • Andrea Ballestero, Rice University“I think that the book is excellent and will make an important contribution to debates in the field.” • Jason Cons, University of Texas at Austin

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Life at Water’s EdgeFranz Krause and Mark HarrisChapter 1. Displacing the Delta: Notes on the Anthropology of the Earth’s Physical FeaturesTanya RichardsonChapter 2. The Global Swamp. Or, the Amphibious as a Figure of HeterotopiaLukas LeyChapter 3. Stagnation: Waterflows and the Politics of Stranded Matter in La Mojana, ColombiaAlejandro CamargoChapter 4. Economy, Identity and Hydrology: Toward a Holistic Approach to Intersecting Volatilities in the Mackenzie Delta, CanadaFranz KrauseChapter 5. ‘This Tide Will Be a Good Tide’: On Movement, Anticipative Waiting and Tricking on the Islands of the Parnaíba Delta, BrazilNora HorisbergerChapter 6. Gleaning Time: Practice, Pause and Anticipation in the Sine-Saloum Delta, SenegalSandro SimonChapter 7. Lived Histories of Flows and Sediments in a Turkish DeltaCatarina ScaramelliChapter 8. Available, Yet Unavailable: Anchoring Land in the Ayeyarwady Delta, MyanmarBenoit IvarsConclusion: Confluences and Distributaries in Delta LifeFranz Krause and Mark HarrisIndex