Please join the Environmental Change Initiative for a virtual seminar presented by Jamie Linton, Researcher at Université de Limoges, France.

The title of his talk is "What is Water? At least three approaches to the question, and their implications for action."

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Abstract: In this presentation I will summarize the trajectory of my thinking about water over the last 25 years, starting with what I will call a realist-environmentalist approach, followed by a critical-constructivist approach, followed by an ontological-pluralist approach… Each of these approaches produces particular ways of understanding water and water-related problems and issues, and each has particular implications for how to respond to these problems and issues. In my presentation I will describe these various ways of understanding and responding, and I will discuss how each approach corresponds to a particular manner of teaching about water.

Bio: Jamie Linton is a geographer and researcher at Géolab UMR 6042 CNRS, University of Limoges, France. First as a journalist and free-lance writer based in Canada, and later as an academic in Canada and France, he has researched and written on water and water-related issues since the 1990s, transitioning from relatively positivist to more critical approaches along the way. The author of numerous articles in scientific journals, books and other publications, his work since the 2000s has questioned the modern paradigm of water management by mobilizing concepts such as “modern water”, the “hydrosocial cycle”, and multiple (ontologies of) waters.