Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planet. It's a hot final zones, and tropic climbs
Speaker 0 00:00:15 Through
Speaker 1 00:00:16 Current and thriving season. Wind blowing some breathing trees, strong sunshine, good planets are hard to
Speaker 0 00:00:29 Find. Good planet.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 Hello, case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again. And you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case, good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipitz. Rivers have long been the objects of poems, songs, novels, studies, fishers, swimmers, sewage engineers, farmers and salmon in California rivers. And the water in them are the focus of near eternal political struggles. And there's that old saying, attributed to miraculous one never steps into the same river twice. Every river is different, yet there is some human drive to make every river the same. The ideal river. My guest today is Dr. Joanne Yao. She is senior lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She's also author of The Ideal River, how Control of Nature Shaped The International Order. Her book is about the Rhine Daniel bin Congo Rivers, how they were reshaped and managed or not managed, and the role they played in the imaginaries and the emergence of the European imperialist order of the 19th century. And in the shaping of nature around the world before. And since Ya's book has, I think, special relevance for California, where the struggle to make virtually all of our river's ideal ones, has been going on since the middle of the 18 hundreds. Dr. Joan Yao, welcome to sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:02:04 Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 00:02:06 Um, so why don't we begin with a brief synopsis of your book, what it's about and why you wrote it.
Speaker 3 00:02:12 Okay. Yeah. So the book is titled The Ideal River. Uh, so the book is really about the creation of the ideal river or a, a sense of what the perfect river river ought to look like in the western geographical imaginary. And I focused on the, uh, late 18th, uh, on 19th centuries. Um, and this ideal river is a rational, straightened and predictable highway, uh, for global, for the global movement of goods, people and ideas. Um, so the book examines efforts to create this ideal river along three transboundary rivers, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Congo Rivers. And it's done through the creation of the first international organizations in the 19th century along the Ryan and the DanUp, and the failure to create a similar organization along the Congo. Uh, and I think it came at the topic in a roundabout way. So when I started my PhD project, um, I wanted to write a PhD on cooperation over oceans global oceans.
Speaker 3 00:03:18 Mm-hmm. But was quickly advised to kinda scale down the ambition of this PhD project. So it turned to rivers as a scale down version of perhaps, uh, ocean cooperation, but actually discovered how fascinating rivers really are, both physically as natural objects, but also idea, um, as spiritual places and places of the sublime where beauty intermingle with danger. Um, so I guess I wrote the book because I found rivers to be really fascinating characters, um, in international politics, um, and fascinating characters in the history of the creation of the current international order. And I wanted to really highlight to IR scholars that, um, international society's engagement with the natural environment isn't really a recent thing that came to the four in the late 20th century, really rests at the heart of a Western led modernity.
Speaker 2 00:04:11 Okay. Um, well, what, how did you, so how, you know, you did your PhD at the London School of Economics, and I don't know what your, your background is, but how did you end up there?
Speaker 3 00:04:23 Okay, so I grew up, um, in the United States, uh, and I became interested in international politics at the University of Chicago where I did my undergraduate. Um, and then, uh, I did my master's at Johns Hopkins seis, uh, with a view of working in government or international government of some sort. Um, I spent some time working in the US government. Uh, I didn't really like it there, it was a bit too bureaucratic for me. Where, where were, I'm gonna ask a lot of questions.
Speaker 2 00:04:53 Hmm. Where, where were you working just outta campus?
Speaker 3 00:04:56 I was, uh, working for the Department of Defense.
Speaker 2 00:04:58 Ah, okay.
Speaker 3 00:05:00 Um, and it was a bit too bureaucratic and I challenged authority a lot, so <laugh>, um, it wasn't the, the correct partnership, let's just say. Um, so I thought, well, what else can I do? So I applied for PhD programs, and while I was waiting for, um, the answers from PhD programs, I went off to the Republic of Georgia to work for an international NGO O Care International, um, there for a while. Uh, and I got an offer from the London School of Economics. Uh, so I decided to go, I think otherwise I would've perhaps stayed in the, um, NGO sector mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then I got my PhD, as you said, at the London School of Economics in International Relations. Um, and I cast around for academic jobs as one does, and one finishes one's PhD. Um, and I thought, Ooh, I'll give myself a couple years to see if I can find something, and then if not, well I'm, I'm sure I can find something else to do. Um, and I got a teaching position at Durham University where I was for two years, and then when the opportunity came back, um, came to move back to London, I took that opportunity to move to Queen Mary. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:06:08 <affirmative>. Okay. Well, the, the three rivers that you write about, uh, you know, have, uh, what I would think of as a, a distinct geopolitics. Um, and one thing we ought to remember is of course, is that my listeners are not ir international relations scholars. So we have to be sort of, you know, cautious about terminology, as I'm often reminded, anyway, distinct geopolitics. Right. I mean, they run through different parts of Europe, uh, and of course the Congo. And, uh, some of it has to do with obviously geography and geology and some of it with borders and ideologies. I mean, can you summarize this history of geopolitical politics and, and, um, let's just say struggle over these rivers?
Speaker 3 00:06:51 Yes. Um, so I think that's really a central point of the book, um, is that in creating or in envisioning the ideal river along each of these actual physical rivers, there's a different inflection for what the ideal river looks like, um, in the imaginary. Um, and you're right, it has to do with the physical characteristics of the river. So, um, I describe how each of the rivers have different, uh, physical characteristics which enable or present barriers to different types of politics. Um, but I, and you're right, it's also important, uh, what's also important for the story is the river's place each reverse place in global geopolitics, perhaps we can call it. Um, so for example, the Rhine, um, I see the Rhine as sort of an internal highway for European countries. And the Rhine, uh, the TAing of the Rhine was seen as good for the flourishing of European commerce, European political cooperation, and European civilization and progress, um, to help Europe overcome sort of the tet insanity of its medieval past and to achieve an rational efficient modernity.
Speaker 3 00:08:06 Um, and that has to do, of course, with the geopolitics of the Rhine and where it's situated, uh, in Europe flowing through a series of European countries. Um, and the difference between the Rhine and the Congo, I think is, uh, and the Danube is interesting in that the Danube, because it flows from the heart of Europe to the near periphery or the near East, um, the river is seen as a connecting river that connects the heart of European civilization to something foreign. So it's seen as a, a liminal space where Europe meets the other and then controlling the river, retaining the river of signifies the control of this conduit to make sure that civilization and progress flows one direction from Europe outwards rather than chaos flowing the other direction. Um, and con the Congo exists outside of Europe, as you mentioned, um, in what was envisioned as a heart of darkness or a blankness on the map. So it was very, uh, seen very much as an imperial river. Um, and the paving of the Congo was about imposing a commercial rationality and imposing all the good things about European civilization on this conceptually empty space where no, um, legitimate institutions existed before or seen as no legitimate institutions.
Speaker 2 00:09:32 And, but, but, and, and what was the, what were the consequences of that? I mean, this is in the context right, of the, uh, the, uh, struggle over, you know, partitioning Africa. Right. Um, uh, what, what, so,
Speaker 3 00:09:46 Oh, sorry. Uh, so the context of, of course, um, for the Congo, uh, the consequences of imposing a European model developed, uh, along the Rhine in the Congo onto the, what they thought was a conceptually empty space was rejection of this international organization that in never took off. Right? So it, um, the Congo River Commission was, uh, supposed to be, um, constituted through the 1885, uh, Berlin conference where the partition, well, hang on, might might say the scramble for Africa really took off. Um, and there was supposed, but if you look at the conference, the purposes of the conference wasn't to divide Africa. Uh, the purposes of the conference was actually to institute some sort of order so they wouldn't be war amongst the parties fighting for Africa. And so the Congo Commission was part of that deal where there was supposed to be a commission, an ordered, rational way of taming this river, um, where, uh, everything didn't descend into war. Right. In terms of the, the who has what, who owns what piece of Africa. Um, and
Speaker 2 00:10:59 Sorry, it sounds, I mean, when you talk, talk about it that way, you know, talk about imposing order on nature. It sounds, and pardon to any of my listeners whom I might insult, it sounds very platonic and German, right? I mean, in the sense of, or even Prussian. Now, I know Prussia, Prussia doesn't enter the, uh, the, the scene until later in the 19th century. But, but is, is this, I mean, who was the most influential party or country, especially in Europe since, you know, the Germans didn't get much of Africa, as I recall, they got mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Southwest Africa, and I think Rwanda, right? Not Rwanda, um, Burundi, I think it was, or anyway, it doesn't matter. Um, mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 3 00:11:42 Uh, so I guess I don't, in, in my research, I don't really distinguish between the different European countries. Oh, okay. And sort of the different inflections, um, that each perhaps European culture might have had and meanings, uh, behind the river. I was very much looking for more similarities mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so the sources I rely on are perhaps, uh, primarily British, uh, because of the language I speak and where I'm situated. Yeah. Um, but the British were a big part of, of discussing the imposition of, um, commission, a river commission of some sort on the Congo. Um, the French were very much part of the conversation as well. And the French also have a history of controlling water in, in, in ways. For example, if you, we think about, um, Versai and the grand fountains of Versas, it's all about controlling water and demonstrating how the controlled water also bleeds into other, uh, specs of state control.
Speaker 2 00:12:46 Yeah. And I'm gonna mean, I wanna come back to some of that later about, about water. Um, one of the things, uh, that you talk about in the book is about, about sovereignty over rivers. Right? Is that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the, the laws of, of sovereignty, which is very much like the law of capture, um, and domestic politics. I mean, it's, you know, if if you have the, the banks, you own it and you control it. Right. And on the other hand, as you mentioned, commerce was a very important factor. So you're talking there about, about sovereignty as an obstacle to, you know, in a sense, turning the river into a single, oh, I don't know, a single, uh, entity, a single <laugh> stream, or whatever you want to call it. And how did that work? I mean, there were tolls, you know, those, these kinds of tolls and chains and, and that sort of image. How, how was that dealt with?
Speaker 3 00:13:44 It's, um, for, and I think that aspect of the book focuses specifically on, uh, the Rhine mm-hmm. <affirmative> and sort of the history of Tet tolls, um, levied along important parts of the river. Uh, so, uh, historically, um, you know, the German states were broken down into small principalities along the river, and this gave the chance for every prince to kind of levy toes across the river. Um, similar dynamics along the Dan. Uh, but for the most part, I talk about how this, um, leving of toes along the run made it really an inefficient economic highway. So inefficient. There were songs written about this, how many tolls were being levied along the Rhine, and so inefficient that people were transporting their goods over land, which is not as, um, efficient. But, um, given the number of tolls and the number of sort of stops you had to make along the way, um, it was more efficient to just cart things over land.
Speaker 3 00:14:44 Uh, so these tolls along the river sure was an exercise of the prince's right, to levy these tolls. It also kind of speaks to a meaning of the river as belonging to, um, certain princess as part of their, their, their land that they could do with as they wish. And the meaning of that shifts, um, throughout my story. So if the meaning of that at the very beginning is private ownership by the princess as part of their, their land to do with what they wish, then the meaning of least trans-boundary rivers start shifting to, well, shouldn't everybody have the right to use this trans-boundary river? The river doesn't belong to you because it flows through your land, but it starts somewhere else and it goes somewhere else. Right. And so the breaking down of these toll is the sitting down and saying, well, well, we don't, these tolls are not efficient. And having an outside power impose that. So there is a story here of hegemony and having an outside power, whether that's Napoleon or whether that's the settlement at 1815 coming in and saying, we're gonna get rid of these polls because these tolls are not good for European commerce, and they're not good for us morally if we want to be cooperative, civilized, progressive people,
Speaker 2 00:16:00 An economist. I mean, an economist would simply say that this was, um, you know, the recognition that separate tolls, as you say, were inefficient. Right. And I mean, the princes would come to realize that they would make more money if they didn't impose the tolls. Right. Because it cut back our business. Yeah. Um, but, you know, on the other hand, the way you, you talk about it or you write about it, you know, sounds much more like power politics in a sense where, uh, yes, commerce is important, but by the same token, uh, domination of some sort, even if it's not, you know, territorial domination is, is important. I mean, is that, does that seem accurate to you, or am I just projecting?
Speaker 3 00:16:43 Yeah, I think I, in the book, I emphasize kind of the intertwining of two logics, uh, both the economic logic and what I call moral logic. So perhaps maybe not power politics, but there's a moral good in taming the river that's just as important and intertwined in the economic good, because generating more economic wealth is a good, not just in itself, but because it was seen as morally progressive. So that, I think what's important here, ideas of progress really driving the story for me.
Speaker 2 00:17:17 Okay. Well, I was gonna, I was just gonna interject that. Right? I mean, the, the moral case sounds very much like a utilitarian case too, which means, you know, we're sort of back at economics in, in that case mm-hmm. <affirmative> in that instance. Right. Um, but, uh, now I've forgotten what you were just, what you were just talking about. That's what happens, uh, when you get older. Um, one of the things that I wrote to you about, uh, was this link between, um, nationalism and economic development with rivers at their center. You know, and you do, you don't really talk about that precisely, but the, the sort of the will to develop, you know, to progress, oh, is progress. Right. The development, development is progress. Right. And, and progress serves the nation. Um, and again, you know, there's this kind of, uh, I don't know, contradiction, right? That, that to, to develop the river, you have to have some degree of control. I mean, we see this nowadays, right? With the Nile and the dams on the Nile, right. That, that, uh, I think it's Sudan, uh,
Speaker 3 00:18:26 Ethiopia,
Speaker 2 00:18:27 Ethiopia controls now the water, the headwaters of the, of the Nile,
Speaker 3 00:18:31 The grand Renaissance dam that they've built,
Speaker 2 00:18:33 Right? Right. And, and Egypt suffers as a result, or at least it claims it suffers. Right. And, and of course, in both cases, it's, it's about the nation, right? National development, I mean, as much as it is about economic efficiency or, or anything else. And, um, anyway, it's a, it's a theme that, that has sort of long fascinated me. As I mentioned, um, one of, one of the sections of your book is, is called Mega Dams and Concrete Temples, and I wonder if you would talk about temples, um, mega dams and temples, because I mean, it's a very intriguing combination.
Speaker 3 00:19:14 Yeah. I, I guess I'm, I haven't thought long and hard about this, but big dams are like temples because I think they're built to inspire awe, and they're built to inspire awe for an idea the same way temples are through monumental architecture. Um, it's the same way as, you know, you build a monumental temple, it draws the eye upwards to something higher, signifying a higher ideal. Um, and it presents a stage for different sorts of performances to take place. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, they're costly, right? Just like, you know, if you build a grand temple, they're costly in the same way, but also framed as necessary to advance the values of a and aims of whatever society is building them, whether that be sort of the glory of God or, um, the glory of modernity. In the case of these monumental temples, uh, sorry, monumental dams. So for dams, um, the ideal that's being reached for as your eye is drawn upwards, is the desirability of development, uh, along a certain modern conception of what development ought to be, uh, and a certain narrative of how to get there. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:20:25 <affirmative>, I have a, I have a, a question for you to think about, and that is, of course, big dams are falling out of favor. Yes. Right. And, um, does that say anything about the, uh, obsolescence of temples? <laugh>, if you don't want to answer the question, just say, I don't know. Uh, but
Speaker 3 00:20:45 Well, I think that's, that's interesting. Um, something interesting to chew on. Uh, so maybe we're entering, uh, at Arab Post Modernity. So if these temples are built for modernity, uh, to worship on the altar of modernity, then perhaps we're entering, um, a phase where that ideal no longer holds. Um, but there are places in the world, as you mentioned, uh, the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam. Right, right. Um, where it is still being lauded as this, um, amazing things that's gonna help this country developed, developed in the future.
Speaker 2 00:21:25 Yeah. And, and as they say, we, we'll see. Right. It's too soon to tell you're listening to sustainability. Now, I'm Ronnie Lipitz, the host of the show, and my guest today is Dr. Joana, who was written a book called The Ideal River. Uh, and we've been talking about rivers in Europe, in particular, the three rivers she focused on in her, in her book, the Rhine, the Danu, and the Congo. But it seems to me that some of the things that you talk about apply to rivers everywhere. I mean, there is this whole sort of mixed, uh, mixed vision of, of what rivers are, and of course, water, which is so integral to having a river. Um, and you actually wrote, uh, in your, uh, um, acknowledgements the following, can the history of the river be disentangled from the societies that have dreamed along its banks bathed in its waters and engineers engineered its shorelines? I found out an extremely sort of, uh, evocative sentence, um, which, which combines the kind of the romantic and, and imaginary with the concrete and mechanical, and, you know, how, how can you expand on how you think about these connections?
Speaker 3 00:22:40 Yeah. So I think that aspect is very central to the way I think about the relationship between rivers and society, that it's entangled and it's co constituted, right? So in that way in which, um, we don't have imaginaries about what the ideal river is without some engagement with actual rivers, right? So my, um, geographical imaginaries don't come out of somebody sitting in, in their homes in a room. There's dreaming of rivers that there's always some sort of engagement in the concrete, in the actual rivers that whatever person is imagining is used to, right? Whether that's the river outside or the river they traveled to, um, et cetera. And, and I think vice versa, that the river, what we might envision as a natural river, um, has always been, um, sort of worked on by human society in some way. So there's a lot of conversations perhaps, about restoration of rivers.
Speaker 3 00:23:39 Um, but then the big question is restoration to what, what envisioned ideal natural river? Are we restoring things too? Um, and there is evidence that, you know, if you take something like, uh, a river like the Rhine, there's evidence that humans have been, um, trying to engineer shorelines for millions, not millions, thousands of years at least, right? That there is some effort to do this. So I guess what my book is about in the, um, late 18th and 19th centuries, is sort of the monumental scale of those projects, how those projects are scaled up in a way that sort of encompasses the international
Speaker 2 00:24:20 Yeah. And, but, but as those things are, what does nature mean then in that context? I mean, uh, you know, we, we have the, the, the mechanical utilitarian vision, right? The engineers and the hydrologists of the 19th century looking at these rivers and saying, boy, what a mess. You know, we've gotta get 'em cleaned up. And then you have the re the, the romantics, you know, who write music and who paint paintings and who, uh, you know, write poems, poems about them, right? And they're both thinking about nature, right? About what, how, how, and of course, this is not irrelevant to the present day in the present moment. Um, how does that, you know, again, can you, can you sort of play that one out because you do talk about nature in there Yeah. And the transformation of nature. Um,
Speaker 3 00:25:11 Yeah. I think very much sort of that romantic vision and the utilitarian vision, sure, there are about sort of engagement with the material outside of themselves, what they see in the world, but they're also about themselves. So that romantic vision of the river is much less about the actual river, but sort of a evocation of a certain feeling, um, within human beings who see the sublime, right? So the beauty and the dangers of the river combined, and it evokes something which brings up, um, sort of the, the, the essence of the human soul. So it is sort of an engagement with the river, but it's also mixed up with an internal gaze, if you will. And I think the utilitarian version, um, I would argue has similar dynamics where you are engaged with engineering the river, you are engaged with pushing the river, um, this way or that way. But it is also in internal reflection of your desires for a rational straightened river. And that an argument that this is what's good for society, this is what's good for progress. And I think that is an internal inflection as well as sort of an engagement with the physical.
Speaker 2 00:26:27 Well, I mean, it's also, it's also a reflection of the, uh, the, um, enlightenment desire to command nature, right? Yeah. Uh, what is it, the, the, uh, I can't even remember who it was who said it, right? Uh, uh, anyway, it doesn't, there's a line about nature to be a controlled must be obeyed or something, something to that effect. And I think it was one of the bacons who said it, or some, you know, anyway, um, but again, it's, it's part of that sort of drive to understand the world, right? And to be able, not only to explain it, but also to, to manage it. Um, which again, is something that, that has changed, at least in some societies, right? It's no longer, I mean, the notion of wild rivers, um mm-hmm. <affirmative> that we have here. We have, uh, um, uh, a nascent movement to, uh, to drain Hetch Heche, which revises water, which of reservoir, which provides water to San Francisco, um, which John Mu thought one of the most beautiful canyons in the, in the Sierra Nevada. Um, of course, the, the city of San Francisco is aghast at that idea, uh, because where would we get water? Right? And, and, um, I also, I mean, I have some questions here about water scarcity. I know it's kind of outside of your, outside of your remit. Um, but, uh, we've sort of moved away. At least western society has moved away from this, you know, command of nature idea, at least in some, some respects. Hmm. Uh, yeah. I said, I know <laugh> <laugh>, you're looking doubtful <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:28:02 I'm looking doubtful. Um, I think in some ways, and I think I mentioned in my conclusion, and in some ways we have learned from, from some of these mistakes in the past, and in my book, very much mentioned, um, sort of the negative consequences, if you will, of some of these monumental engineering projects that, you know, we thought that straightening the river would fix the flooding, and maybe it didn't. Maybe it just, you know, ushered the flooding down river rather than, you know, locating it up river and made it worse. In fact, um, in, in a lot of instances. Uh, and so in, in that way, maybe we've learned from our mistakes, maybe we're tending towards smaller dams rather than these big monumental dams, um, that maybe a rejection of this mastery idea. There is talk of wilding or rewilding keeping things wild or rewilding, um, wilderness and, and nature.
Speaker 3 00:28:56 Um, but on the other hand, I do think there is still, you know, a a lot going on in terms of the conquest of nature, this idea of mastery going into space, colonizing the moon, colonizing Mars. If we think about geoengineering, uh, this idea that we can stave off climate change by creating a shield around the earth, all of these ideas are still very alive and still seen as perhaps desirable policy options, um, going forward. So on the one hand, I do think there is, you know, or may be too early to tell, there is kind of movement away from mastery, or at least questioning, um, the enlightenment confidence of mastery. But on the other hand, I do think these projects are of mastery are still out there, that we are still quite confident that a, as long as we cry hard enough and build good enough, uh, engineering models or good enough technology that we can control nature.
Speaker 2 00:29:51 Yeah. I mean, I, you're, you're right, of course. Absolutely right. I mean, we still have this struggle between technology on the one hand, right? As the solution to all of our problems and, um, changes in human behavior and social behavior as, as the other. And, uh, you know, I mean, I'm sort of curious, and maybe you've run, you ran into this and, you know, doing your research and in the archives, um, was there opposition to what was being done to the rivers, to the Rhine and the Daniel? I mean, not just, you know, not just the poets and artists, but was there mm-hmm. <affirmative> wider spread, because of course, anytime you try and and tame a resource, you're also intruding on users.
Speaker 3 00:30:35 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:30:37 Did you find anything like that?
Speaker 3 00:30:39 Yeah. So, um, absolutely not so much in the archival material, because a lot of the archival material I accessed focused on the diplomats, and they wouldn't have necessarily, um, talked about it, but there was a lot of discussion about the local groups, um, who resisted and advocated for other meanings of the river, perhaps who advocated for the, the river, perhaps as a habitat for fish or wildlife, or as, um, spiritual beings. And they were very much painted as these degenerative backwards people who stood in the way of progress. So, you know, even in the first case of the Rhine, a lot of the sort of local fishermen and farmers resisted these giant engineering projects to take out the bends along the Rhine and to straighten it and deepen it. But these were just painted as backwards yahoos who stood in the way of der progress, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we, we are looking forward, they're looking backwards, right? Um, and I think that even, uh, today that gets, um, people who stand in the way of these big engineering projects are painted, um, this way that they're looking backwards. They're not, you know, modern in that sense.
Speaker 2 00:31:47 Well, on, on the other hand, some people, you know, look at them as as heroes, right? Uh, mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, I mean, we're, we're no longer, well, you know, again, I'm, I'm projecting backwards by, by saying, you know, that particular view is no longer necessarily the only one. Um, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:32:06 Uh, no, I, I, and I would agree with you that there is a difference, and I, I guess what I, I tried to, to bring out in my book is the way that that one particular view, um, in that one particular meaning of the river has been embedded in international institutions in a way that kind of gives it, uh, a leg up, perhaps in the way we think about the world. Hmm. Um, so because of its dominance in the 19th century, and the 19th century being the beginnings of international organizations as we know it today, these particular ways of viewing nature, these particular ways of, um, aiming for mastery has been embedded in the way the frameworks of international politics in a way that then, um, even now as we challenge that, as different groups, diverse points of view start to challenge, that they're running up against sort of the implicit, uh, embeddedness of those ideas.
Speaker 2 00:33:00 Now, I wonder if, I wonder if one can connect that to the rise of capitalism, um, you know, that, that, um, the, the id, you know, the will to order, we might say, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the efficiency arguments around commerce and, and do again, in the far in the distant past, you know, at the, in, in the year 1200 or even 1500, do you, do, you know, do you find the similar kinds of arguments about the, the, uh, uncontrollability of the river and the need to, uh, to manage it? I, I, I don't know if you went back that far, I, it'd be, I'm sort of curious now about that.
Speaker 3 00:33:39 Yeah. So perhaps I don't really quite understand what you're getting at. The uncontrollability of the river and the desire to control it has, has always been part of the discourse. Um, and in my book, within the times I'm talking about the, the dangers both physically and meta physically of an uncontrolled river, is very much at the center of what these projects were trying to fix.
Speaker 2 00:34:07 No, I mean, I understand that. Yeah. Go on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:34:11 But, um, how does this link to capitalism? What is, sorry, what is,
Speaker 2 00:34:15 Well, I'm going in two directions, right? Yeah. On the, on the one hand, right, it's about development, national development, and the economic product, and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, if you talk about commerce and free trade, you inevitably, inevitably get to capitalism mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? And, um, but, but I'm now curious about historically before the enlightenment, before, you know, yeah. The, the capacity. I mean, rivers were engineered, right? As you pointed out for thousands of years, um, why they were engineered in that way, you know, what was was the goal productivity or, or power, right? The power of the sovereign to basically control the water, right? I mean, you get back to, uh, um, the, uh, the high, high hydrological states argument. Mm-hmm. Um, God, I can't remember, you know, I used, used to be able wit Vogel, right? I used to be able to remember these kinds of things. Um,
Speaker 3 00:35:12 It's alright.
Speaker 2 00:35:13 Um, but the, the idea of, of wild nature, you know, was it, did it ex do you know whether it existed the idea that nature had to be tamed? Um, uh, I mean, I know we have a whole sort of story, right, with Lynn White talking about, talking about the origins of our degradations of nature in early Christianity, right. Or even in the Bible mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the Old Testament. Right. But yeah. Um,
Speaker 3 00:35:42 I guess I don't really go back that far to look beyond. Yeah. So, so my starting point is the, the Renaissance of the Enlightenment a a certain way of, um, I guess in, in the story I start with, at the very beginning, when we look at Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci mm-hmm. <affirmative> trying to, um, trying to do well, um, have their engineering projects, uh, there there was a lot of pushback saying, well, you can't do this to a river. Only God has the right to control a river. Only God can part the seas. Only God can divert a river. You
Speaker 2 00:36:19 Doing that nowadays? Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:36:22 <laugh> the hubris of you guys thinking you can, even though you guys two, the geniuses of the world, even you thinking you can divert a river, what hubris. Right. Um, but enlight, the enlightenment thinking was a rejection of that. It's like, ok, but we can do it and we're gonna show you. Right. So perhaps there was a lot more skepticism before the enlightenment that it was man's place to do these engineering projects to change the entire flow of a river. Um, and that it was very arrogant. Um, I I, yeah, I can, I can sense that, but I haven't done much research into that.
Speaker 2 00:37:05 No, I, I understand and I'm, I'm being unfair partly in asking you that question. I'm just gonna think, you know, does Nche have any views on rivers, <laugh> idea, <laugh> in relationship to what you just talked about? Right. About the, the death of God as the manager or the controller of, of waterways. Right. Um, anyway, there's another dissertation to be written. Yeah. Listen,
Speaker 3 00:37:29 Death of God <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:37:31 And, uh, we, we've got about four minutes left and I wanted to go off topic, um, if that's okay with you about, about rivers and water in general. And since you've got this, um, you know, deep knowledge now of, of 19th century European politics, um, there's a, there's this, this constant theme about countries fighting over rivers, going to war over rivers. I've always sort of regarded that as a, um, a, a questionable proposition. Um, and it certainly is much more exciting than talking about water conservation or even commerce. Right. Uh, when, when, in doing your research, I mean, what, what do you, do you con come to any conclusions about that particular proposition?
Speaker 3 00:38:20 Yeah, I think within, I guess scholarship on shared water plan foundry, water, water, and trans rivers, there is the sense water wars versus water peace, right? So do, does shared water lead to conflict because scarcity of water means it's such a valuable resource that you would fight over this? Or is water so elemental to the survival of human beings That shared water actually leads to recognition of common humanity and cooperation and peace. So I mean, I think that debate, um, is alive in, in the literature. Um, certainly places like, you know, you mentioned the Nile Egyptian leaders are prone to, to say rattling about, um, the readiness to fight over the waters of the Nile. But if you look at the long history of shared, um, freshwater, um, especially through the database, there's a database, um, I think it's Oregon State's transboundary freshwater disputes database.
Speaker 3 00:39:23 Um, there's, you know, people who've done research into this database, uh, point out, there's surprisingly few instances actually of shared water leading to armed conflict in the way we might imagine if we read the headlines. Um, so there are many examples, um, historically I think of shared water really leading to cooperation, surprising cooperation, perhaps for example, the aero basin and the Tigers in the Euphrates and the Jordan, uh, places where state actors are not really known for getting along with each other, but has seen a history of cooperation over these rivers. Um, so, but I I, I do think for me, at least in doing the research, it's important not to think about cooperation and conflict as sort of opposite states that exist separately, at least in international politics. But I think it's in domestic politics as well. So both dynamics might be at play at the same time.
Speaker 3 00:40:14 Two actors might cooperate at and be in conflict at the same time. We really shouldn't see them as either or, um, both might be there. But I think also the important thing, at least for the argument in my book is that we should question cooperation as an ultimate good. Cuz we, you know, when we have the dichotomy of water wars versus water cooperation and water peace, obviously one is better than the other morally. But if you look at an example like the A O C, um, there is impressive international cooperation among the states over sharing of fresh water. But it is the success of that cooperation that has led to environmental degradation and kind of the using up of all the water. They're so good at sharing that they've used up all the water. And the L l C has really shrunk. So cooperation, um, is often kind of lauded is is the end goal of international politics. But hopefully my book, um, questions that a bit that yes, cooperation might, you know, be better than death and, um, destruction, but also, um, is cooperation really the end goal here or should we be adding something else to that?
Speaker 2 00:41:22 You know, I guess might one call up the example of the Colorado River here in the, you know, in the Southwest, which I think there's just been an executive order issued again, you know, te telling the individual states to be behave nicely, to play nicely over dividing the water. Um, yeah, it's, again, it's a kind of an, an archetype. Um, what's your next project about,
Speaker 3 00:41:46 Uh, the next project is going to bring together, um, antarctic exploration and early outer space exploration in thinking about the role of science, um, in creating international cooperation and striving for what I call systemic completion. So this idea that you can see the globe in its entirety, and in order to do that you need to see the globe from all different places.
Speaker 2 00:42:14 That sounds terribly romantic. <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:42:18 Well, it's gonna take down the romanticism. I mean, again, I think
Speaker 2 00:42:22 Is about, well, the blue marble kind of notion. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:42:25 Exactly. It's about deconstructing that and questioning that and seeing what that blue marble concept hides when we see it as this beautiful integrated romantic hole. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2 00:42:37 Okay. Well I look forward. It
Speaker 3 00:42:38 Hides a lot of things. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:42:40 It does is my argument. Uh, well I look forward to seeing it. And I wanna thank you so much, Joanne, for being my guest on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:42:48 Well thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 00:42:50 If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at k squid.org/sustainability now and Spotify, Google Podcasts and Pockets among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make Case Good, your community radio station and keep it going. And so until next, every other Sunday, sustainability now
Speaker 1 00:43:25 Separate zones. The tropic climbs not through current thriving seas and winds blowing some freezing trees and strong zone and safe sunshine. Good planets are hard to.
