VISION

Towards hydrocitizenship will generate initiatives and outputs including practical interventions in local landscapes, new community-environment orientated art works, and critical reflection on the nature of citizenship and community when they are re-imagined from ecological perspectives.  

HYDROCITIZENSHIP
The term hydrocitizenship has been adopted in reference to the more established notion of “ecological citizenship” which sees transformations in how society works at individual and collective levels as essential if we are to generate more meaningful, ecologically sustainable forms of society. In our project, we put this idea to work within the contemporary contexts of individual and community engagements with water.

WATER
Water is a fundamental resource for society, and at present a range of challenging water issues face communities in the UK and internationally. These include concerns over flooding, sea level rise, climate change, drought and supply security, water quality, biodiversity and landscape quality, access for recreation, water and energy (e.g. fracking), effective urban drainage, and waste management. Towards Hydrocitizenship joins a growing body of academic and policy initiatives which seek to address local  hydrospheres  (interconnected water flows and exchanges) holistically, in ways which address these interdependent issues on catchment and systems based scales.

COMMUNITY
Community, although a now much challenged and questioned term, remains a key way in thinking about how society can function effectively in social, cultural and economic terms. This is reflected in the range of recent research that has been supported by the UK Government’s Connected Communities initiative (funders of this project). In relation to communities we ask, what does it do to the ways in which we imagine communities, and to the ways in which they imagine themselves, if local water-related environmental issues (both assets and conflicts) are brought more fully into local public consciousness? Can addressing environmental issues through local groups help develop relations within communities and between communities? Can narratives of past and current relationships between people, and people and water, help generate new narratives – new relationships? 

APPROACHES
The core approaches within the project are arts and humanities disciplines and practices, (history, theatre studies, film making, narrative studies, cultural geography, landscape studies) which are intergraded with a range of social science disciplines (planning, environmental geography, community studies) and methods (ethnography and participatory action research). The research process will see arts and social enterprise consultants, community partners, and other water/community stakeholders taking full part in the project in four case study areas in Wales and England (Borth; Bristol; Lee Valley, London; and Shipley). 

CASE STUDIES
The case study teams will also exchange and integrate skills, methods, experiences and findings into an overarching synthesis.  This synthesis will address the questions set out above and provide a reflexive analysis of how creative and participatory arts and humanities centred interdisciplinary research can be done effectively and with legacy. 

PARTICIPATION
During the project’s three-year timeframe, the overall academic team of 15 researchers from 9 universities will work with the arts practitioners and community groups to refine and advance participatory research practices and outputs. The exact form and direction of these activities will be the outcome of local, collaborative working. The interdisciplinary team will work across all case study sites in order to magnify impacts and ensure that the research is relevant in a range of disciplines and policy arenas.
For more information contact: 
Owain Jones, Professor of Environmental Humanities, Bath Spa University by email at o.jones@BATHSPA.AC.UK  or telephone on 07871 572969