Of Relationality and Water: Stories of Kinship, Care and Belonging

Water has played a central role as a resource and property in our dominant worldviews. It has made and unmade empires. In our nation-building, watercourses, waterways, oceans, rivers and freshwaters have all played leading roles, part of a continued and relentless drive to choreograph and subjugate our waters. But it is the indigenous, the subjugated, and the oppressed who seem to best recognise water’s power as both a life force and a catastrophic threat. For them, water is #kin, #creator, and #protector.
In this episode, we wanted to explore relationality when it comes to water. Inspired by, and quoting from, a kinship project run by the Center for Humans and Nature, “with every breath, every sip of water, every meal, we are reminded that our lives are inseparable from the life of the world and the cosmos - in ways that are both material and spiritual.” As they ask in their project, “what are the sources of our deepest evolutionary and planetary connections, and of our profound longing for kinship?”.
The politics of kinship can be complicated, but how would we approach our bodies of water if they were kin?
So, we asked three women who have made water, and bodies of water, their life work a range of questions. We wanted to see through their eyes how water has shaped them and how they have shaped their relations with water. All three guests, through their writing, scientific research, and hobbies, share a lifelong passion for all things water and marine creatures.
We put together a few questions for our guests, giving them free rein in how they wanted to interpret them. In part one of this episode, we will hear descriptions of their work and play as it relates to water, how it has shaped them as people, and why they consider their projects or interventions so important.
Our guests are:
#SejalMehta is an author and editor based in Mumbai, India. She is a published author for children’s books and one feminist anthology, and a debut non-fiction book on intertidal wildlife called Superpowers on the Shore, published by Penguin Randomhouse in 2022. To further her individual outreach goals, she has launched Snaggletooth, a line of nature-inspired merchandise that illustrates positive associations between humans and animals.
#DivyaPanicker has recently completed her PhD in Oceanography from the University of Washington. Her work focuses on cetacean distributions, habitat use and behaviour off the southwest coast of India.
#tasneemkhan is a biologist, photographer, adventurer, and educator who has spent the last decade facilitating interdisciplinary initiatives in the fields of ecology, conservation, education, and science communication. She is now focused on place-based education through a co-founded initiative Earth Colab and also started Sea School in Ireland.