




































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 3 (2): 105–111, July 2020 

 
SPECIAL SECTION: New Epistemologies of Water in India  
 

Editorial: Setting the Context 
 

Jenia Mukherjee  
 
The Anthropocene and the ―nine planetary boundaries‖ framework have 
informed, and in turn have been informed by, rigorous quantitative models 
and in-depth qualitative studies across global, regional, and local units of 
analyses.1 Contemporary water research, by critically revisiting existing 
ontologies and epistemologies with the agenda of addressing ―wicked 
problems‖, is an advancement in this direction.2 Wesslink, Kooy, and 
Warner (2017) point out that the motivation to combine disciplinary 
methodologies and study water from both the natural science and social 
science perspectives was driven by the need to collectively understand 
complex and interdependent water-related societal challenges. This has led 
to the emergence of fields such as socio-hydrology and hydrosocial 
research, which can be considered epistemological departures, as they 
perceive ―water—and the systems within which it flows—as both social and 
natural‖ (Wesslink, Kooy, and Warner 2017, 2). However, socio-hydrology 
and hydrosocial research differ in their methodological designs and 
applications—the outcomes of their different disciplinary orientations and 
ideological affiliations. To contextualize hydrological science, socio-

                                                           
 Guest Editor and Coordinator for this Special Section. Department of Humanities and 
Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 721302, India; 
jenia@hss.iitkgp.ac.in.  

Copyright © Mukherjee 2020. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i2.221 

1 The nine planetary boundaries include: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric 
ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, biogeochemical flows: interference with P and 
N cycles, global freshwater use, land-system change, rate of biodiversity loss and chemical 
pollution (Rockström et al. 2009). 
2 Problems are ―wicked‖ when they are multi-layered, interconnected, difficult to define or 
delineate, cannot be solved with quick fixes or technical solutions, and keep reappearing time 
and again unless perceived as a composite whole and addressed at their roots (Rittel and 
Webber 1973).   

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i2.221


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [106] 

hydrology often relies on quantitative or mathematical modelling to 
represent the water–human relationship. On the other hand, hydrosocial 
analysis aims to reveal how power operates in water–society connections, 
and how water shapes and is shaped by society (Lafaye de Micheaux and 
Mukherjee, forthcoming). However, despite the methodological and political 
challenges of transdisciplinarity (Wesselink, Kooy, and Wagner 2017), 
through which socio-hydrologists and hydrosocial researchers can actually 
come up with shared research designs and courses of action, water 
researchers are now ascribing value to ―disciplinary trespassing‖ (Rusca and 
Baldassarre 2019). Drawing on their own research experience and expertise, 
Rusca and Baldassarre (2019) demonstrate the multiple ways in which 
different natural science and social science water research frameworks can 
converge and become compatible and complementary to each other. 
Reflecting on the significance of ―reciprocal learning‖ for water researchers, 
Evers et al. (2017) have conceptualized a ―pluralistic water research‖ 
approach that is ―integrative and interdisciplinary‖ and which aims to 
―coherently and comprehensively integrate human-water dimensions‖.  

The South Asian water scene is huge and diverse, leading to the exploration 
and analysis of complex problems using natural science and social science 
approaches, such as socio-hydrology, environmental history, and political 
ecology (including hydrosocial studies).3 While transdisciplinarity is yet to 
emerge in India (with the exception of very recent large-scale projects that 
have brought hydrologists and social scientists together—for example, 
ATCHA and EqUIP), contemporary social science-based water research is 
limited to the analysis of power relations among multiple actors, much like 
the mainstream political ecology of water (Mukherjee 2020).4 This is 
problematic, as there is ―something distinct to water, to water experiences 
and water knowledges in Asia‖ (Baghel, Stepan, and Hill 2017, 2). This 
special section advances alternative new epistemologies of water (NEW) 
within the South Asian—and particularly the Indian context.  

In the opening article, ―Knowledge Others, Others‘ Knowledge‖, Lahiri-
Dutt clearly explains why NEW is imperative for the Global South. She 

                                                           
3 The socio-hydrological framework is still novel in the Indian context, with very few case 
studies to date (Wescoat 2013; Srinivasan 2015; Nüsser et al. 2019). A detailed historiography 
on water social science paradigms is available in Mukherjee (2018). 
4 The ATCHA project (https://www6.inrae.fr/atcha/Presentation) combines an integrated 
biophysical model with a participatory approach that aims to help farming systems adapt to 
climate change in a network of experimental watersheds in Karnataka, India. The EU-India 
sponsored EqUIP Project (2019–2022), which aims to analyse ―fluid governance‖ paradigms 
in the Rhone and Ganga Deltas, comprises an interdisciplinary, international team of 
geomorphologists, political ecologists, historians, cultural studies researchers, and critical 
physical geographers. 

https://www6.inrae.fr/atcha/Presentation
https://www6.inrae.fr/atcha/Presentation


[107] Jenia Mukherjee  

critically interrogates the hegemony of western epistemology, where water is 
commodified into ―modern water‖ (Linton 2010) or ―normal water‖ 
(Schmidt 2017), abstracted from social, political, and cultural dimensions. 
The author talks about the need to transcend a singular ―way of knowing‖ 
water by recognizing alternative forms, and thus postulates ―an anti-
hegemonic ecology of knowledges‖ (p. 121). Based on her study of the lives 
of islanders ―dancing with rivers‖ in Bengal, Lahiri-Dutt evolves her 
theoretical conviction, which finds strong manifestation in her arguments. 
With her expertise and strong grasp of ethno-theoretical discourse, Lahiri-
Dutt discusses the need for, and potential of, feminist epistemologies using 
examples from global projects—such as the Sustainable Development 
Investment Portfolio (SDIP) at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial 
Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia—to provide directions through 
which gender can be integrated into the study of rivers and riverine 
communities.  

Moreover, spatial diversities and specificities (like tropical-deltaic 
materialities), coupled with rich customary practices and traditions, underlie 
socio–water enmeshings that need to be unveiled, understood, documented, 
and analysed for both academic and policy interventions as well as the 
intersections between the two. Mukherjee and Ghosh apply the 
―hydrosocial‖ lens to the chars (riverine islands) of the Lower Ganga Basin 
in the Malda and Murshidabad districts, West Bengal, to capture the micro-
realities of everyday life and livelihood dynamics in the ―muddyscapes‖. 
They question western knowledge of ―solid‖ (land) and ―liquid‖ (flowing 
waters) to formulate a ―fluid epistemology‖ and enrich the ―hydrosocial‖ 
through the proposition of the ―hydro(sediment)social‖ that incorporates 
complex interactions between water, society, and mud. The article advances 
why and how it is imperative to rethink sediment beyond their physical-
geomorphological existence and as social sites of interaction. It activates the 
agency of sediment by not only understanding it as an emblem of 
uncertainties and volatilities, but also as a zone of opportunity and 
possibility bestowed with rich ecosystem services and the collective 
resilience of the choruas (islanders; people inhabiting chars). 

Sen, Unnikrishnan, and Nagendra‘s article on ―imperilled waterscapes‖ uses 
history and political ecology to provide a long-term narrative of social and 
ecological change in Bengaluru‘s lake system, with a particular focus on 
Bellandur Lake, the largest lake in the city. The major systemic change that 
the article discusses is a rupture in the connectivity between lakes, which 
has caused a reversal in both the imagination and reality of the lake from a 
―flowing‖ to a ―static‖ network of water. Using historical sources such as 
inscriptions, archival records, historical maps, oral history interviews, and 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [108] 

primary fieldwork spanning the past six years, the authors document urban 
waters and identify rapid urbanization as the main cause that led to these 
water bodies losing their connectivity and the reason for their physical 
transformation into stagnant, isolated pools of water in different parts of 
Bengaluru. The article familiarizes readers with ancient stories, myths, 
legends, and practices surrounding Bellandur Lake, and re-contextualizes 
water within social and cultural systems. Modern infrastructure, like piped 
water and sewage disposal systems, not only led to the drying up of these 
lakes and their transformation into sewage-filled water bodies, but also 
altered the cultural practices associated with them. The authors lament that 
protest and petition drives remain sporadic; isolated and compartmentalized 
attempts to restore particular lakes have failed as the significance of lakes as 
an interconnected system has already lost ground, leading to ―a lack of 
systemic engagement with the dynamics of this complex social-ecological 
system‖ (p. 132). By making ―invisible epistemologies of water visible 
again‖ (p. 133) through historical and ethnographic narratives, the authors 
emphasize the role of lakes as ―systems‖ in augmenting urban 
environmental resilience. 

NEW not only acknowledges the need to broaden and enrich the vista of 
Indian water research by unravelling multi-layered and interdependent 
historical and political complexities and cultural specificities, but it also 
introduces integrated frameworks through which this can be scientifically 
done. Combining political ecology and mésologie, Lafaye de Micheaux and 
Kull imagine a new ―environmental geography of rivers‖ to capture how 
both the ideas and materialities of rivers operate in the contemporary social 
order. The article chronicles diverse ways of knowing rivers across historical 
conjectures, from antiquity through the Renaissance and to contemporary 
times. The authors demonstrate how post-modernist approaches emerging 
since the 1980s are a departure from the long-lasting modernist perspective. 
Post-modern scholars have revisited and reconceptualized the complex 
relations between objects and subjects and humans and non-humans, 
focussing on hybrids instead, with binaries and boundaries becoming 
dysfunctional. The post-modern moment facilitated ―non-modern‖ 
ontological and epistemological ruptures, evident in contemporary water 
research frameworks like political ecology (more specifically the 
―hydrosocial‖) and mésologie. While the political ecological perspective 
enables researchers to account for the dialectical and internal relation between 
water and society, mésologie, propounded by the French geo-philosopher 
Augustin Berque, focuses on the ―milieu‖, which is simultaneously physical, 
ecological, and based on human interpretation (Berque 2014). The authors 
argue that by integrating these two frameworks, emotions and attachments 



[109] Jenia Mukherjee  

towards rivers can be understood as embedded within the strategic field of 
power relations. They discuss the significance of applying 
―hydrocosmological‖ and ―mesopolitical‖ lenses, draw our attention to case 
studies, and explain why and how Indian rivers—like the Ganga—offer the 
most appropriate context for analysis along these lines. 

NEW also brings hydroculturality to the fore in an empirical manner 
through field realities and shows how the Indic perspective shapes our 
―pre-modern‖ (non-Western) water perceptions. DasGupta‘s article on the 
Sundarbans deploys the water culture lens to underline the evolution of 
human history through the propulsion of religious water customs. 
DasGupta reflects on water-centric quotidian actualities through nuanced 
readings of oral histories collected from the field and examines their 
relation to the local religious literature. By analysing regional narratives and 
customary practices in relation to the local religious culture, as evident in 
the folklore and traditions of the Sundarbans Delta, the article explores 
cultural and historical imaginations surrounding water that influence—and, 
in turn, are determined by—the island archipelagos and their inhabitants. 
The application of the ―hydrocultural‖ framework enables us to know and 
understand the multiple ways through which water and cultural practices 
have shaped each other historically; this provides an opportunity to rethink 
the aqua-centrism of communities at the margins of social development. 
Mukhopadhyay and Choudry‘s article on ―Indic hydro-epistemologies‖ 
explores the sacrality (and secrecy) of things revealed by water, i.e., visible, 
tangible gifts and assets, and things hidden in water, such as tactile 
experiences. It deliberately focuses on those sacred functions of water in 
the Indic traditions ―that often escape our critical gaze‖ (p. 168). The 
authors analyse the limits of western theoretical frameworks, like Eliade‘s 
―hierophany‖ or Taylor‘s ―sea spirituality‖, to capture the complexity of 
Indic religious cultures, as ―the spectrum of the sacred is bafflingly wide 
and all-pervasive‖ (p. 163). By drawing attention to the array of sacred 
things in Indic cultures that are both revealed by water and hidden in it—
like the conch shell, bana linga, svarnamukhi shila, shaligrama shila, and petrified 
body parts of Goddess Sati—the authors contribute to the hydro-
epistemology of sacred things, where water does not remain restricted as 
an object of worship, but engages in an active play with the very epistemes of 
sacrality. 5 

                                                           
5 Bana linga, also known as Svayambhu (i.e. self-born) Linga, is an ellipsoid stone worshipped 
by Hindus. The stone symbolizes Lord Shiva, the supreme god of power in the Hindu 
Trinity (Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwar). The stone is commonly found in the bed of the 
Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, India. Svarnamukhi shila is the natural divine stone 
obtained from the Swarnamukhi River in Andhra Pradesh. And, shaligrama shila, collected 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsoid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmada_river
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhya_Pradesh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [110] 

NEW in India aims to transcend the political to reach and move towards 
the plural by making invisible feedback loops—which are embedded in our 
rituals, belief systems, coping practices, and power hierarchies—visible. 
These short articles are appetizers and avenues, provoking fresh empirical 
investigations and methodological innovations that lead towards larger 
theoretical frameworks that can be applied at scale. NEW is also ambitious 
and politically committed to advancing theoretical understandings on water 
beyond academia through reciprocal and mutual learning among academic 
and ―non-academic‖ sectors (like policy circles, civil society, user groups, 
and others) towards a just, democratic, and resilient transformation along 
challenging yet possible lines of transition from epistemology (or epistemic 
pluralities) to (multiple) axiology. 

 

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Evers, Mariele, Britta Höllermann, Adrian Delos Santos Almoradie, Glenda Garcia 
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Lafaye de Micheaux, Flore, and Jenia Mukherjee. Forthcoming: 2021. 
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from river-beds, refers to a fossilized shell worshipped by the adherents of the Vaishnava 
cult, the devotees of the Lord Vishnu. 

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1372-0
https://doi.org/10.3390/w11101973
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-785-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-785-2015

