‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’: an agency perspective on water, values and infrastructure

Ertsen, Maurits W.

doi:10.1080/00438243.2016.1246975

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…No one encounters a clean sheet when coming into the/a world. The material represents the relations that predate our arrival, whether we like these relations or not (Ertsen, , ). Mobilizing matter allows changing weak and renegotiable associations into strong and unbreakable units (Ertsen, ; Schouten, ; Strum & Latour, ).…”

Section: Complex Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Maya case is an excellent test for what emerging social complexity means in tropical conditions, with other water resource and control issues and different rhythms of nonhuman agents—including vegetation and crop growth, soils, and properties of organic processes. Outlines for such models have been sketched elsewhere (Ertsen, , ). We argue, however, that our short‐term model we discuss here should be part and parcel of—if not basis for—any more sustained effort to model and analyze (Maya) societal complexity as an everyday phenomenon.…”

Section: Beyond the Maya—toward Modeling Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Basically, the Old world would have yielded technology-based empires, whereas the New world did not go beyond local labor-based communities. We argue that wet labor and dry technology require the same methodological approach, as all worlds are built on local interactions between human and nonhuman agents (Berry, 2014;Dobres & Robb, 2000;Ertsen, 2012Ertsen, , 2016aErtsen, , 2016bGardner, 2007;Hodder, 2012;Knappett, 2011;Latour, 2000Latour, , 2005Martin, 2005;Verbeek, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The drop that makes a vase overflow: Understanding Maya society through daily water management

Ertsen

Wouters

2018

WIREs Water

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Water is an important key to understand Maya society, especially water availability within a context of climatic changes. Increasing drought would have pushed the Maya water systems into collapse. This paper studies the Maya water systems from an action-oriented perspective, in order to understand what challenges the Maya had to overcome when dealing with water. The systems found at Tikal serve as main example, allowing comparisons with other Maya sites. In this analysis, hydraulic-and agent-based elements are combined in a model to investigate the performance of the water system within extreme weather conditions and changing human agency. The results suggest that the Tikal water system was able to cope with most of the extreme situations. Furthermore, model results allow proposing that the Maya did not anticipate on short-term changes in external conditions. Generally, in Tikal surpluses of water may have been as important as shortages of water. The extensive system of drains and canals present at Tikal may have been built to move water from the center of the city rather than to supply water to lower situated reservoirs during the dry season. Such a water-removal system could be less centrally orientated and organized than is often argued. This could also mean that organizational structures of water systems of different city centers (Tikal, Calakmul, and Caracol) were more similar than usually assumed. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Engineering Water > Planning Water Science of Water > Water Qualityactions, agency, material properties, Maya, modelingAs for other ancient civilizations, water was vital for the Maya. Many have studied the water systems in the Southern Maya lowlands, with varying results (Braswell et al., 2004;Chase & Chase, 1998;Crandall, 2006;Folan et al., 1995;French & Duffy, 2014;French, Duffy, & Bhatt, 2013;Gallopin, 1990;Gill, 2000;Lentz, Dunning, & Scarborough, 2015a;Lentz, Dunning, & Scarborough, 2015b;Lucero, 2006;Lucero & Fash, 2006;Scarborough, 1998Scarborough, , 2006Scarborough et al., 2012;Scarborough & Gallopin, 1991;Scarborough & Lucero, 2010;Wyatt, 2014). This paper can only reference a subset of the huge number of water-papers for the Maya, but it is obvious that in general water in the Maya area must have been associated with power relations. The shape of the power relations-to which extent elites controlled the water sources more centrally or

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Section: Complex Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Beyond the Maya—toward Modeling Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The drop that makes a vase overflow: Understanding Maya society through daily water management

Ertsen

Wouters

2018

WIREs Water

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“…It has become increasingly clear over the last decade or two that major hydraulic systems do not have to be driven by centralized states (Ertsen 2016, 3). On the contrary, the most resilient ones are often self-regulated by reasonably egalitarian village or rural systems.…”

Section: Water and Stonementioning

confidence: 99%

The precarious conviviality of watermills

Given¹

2018

Arch. Dial.

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Social institutions such as the water-powered grain mills of Ottoman Cyprus are elaborately interconnected with a wide range of human and non-human players, from millers and villagers to water, gradient, stone and climate. When participants recognize their mutual dependencies and operate according to social and environmental limits, then following Ivan Illich we can call these watermills convivial tools. The European-owned sugar plantations, mills and refineries of medieval Cyprus, by contrast, divided and alienated their workforce, and their demands for water, labour, soil and fuel surpassed what their landscape and society could provide. They are, then, unconvivial tools. Conviviality is always precarious: it needs continual negotiation, conflict and compromise, as well as an acceptance of the mutual dependence of all participants, non-human and human. This politics of conviviality is particularly urgent in times of social and ecological crisis.

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“…Although they use archaeological methods, these studies also take recent historical periods as their main subject matter. With respect to hydraulic infrastructures specifically, a deeper chronological perspective is offered in Morrison's (2015) research on South Asia and in Ertsen's (2016) work on Mesopotamia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an Archaeological Theory of Infrastructure

Wilkinson

2018

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Infrastructure makes up a considerable portion of the material culture that archaeologists study. Whether measured in terms of spatial extension or just sheer mass, infrastructural entities are often among the biggest artifacts that archaeologists encounter in the field. Yet there is no overarching theoretical framework for the archaeological study of infrastructure, and its different varieties tend to be treated in a rather piecemeal fashion. This article therefore seeks to lay some foundations for a more theoretically unified approach to infrastructure within the discipline. It offers a general definition or infrastructure, as well as a basic typology. The typology presented is fourfold, encompassing (1) static infrastructure (e.g., terraces, harbors and storehouses), (2) circulatory infrastructure (e.g., highways, canals, aqueducts, and sewers), (3) bounding infrastructure (e.g., palisades, ditches, and corrals), and (4) signaling infrastructure (e.g., lighthouses and beacons). By analogy with more heavily theorized categories such as urbanism, it is suggested that infrastructure should be a topic of global comparative analysis within archaeology and its allied disciplines.

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‘Friendship is a slow ripening fruit’: an agency perspective on water, values and infrastructure

Cited by 11 publications

References 58 publications

The drop that makes a vase overflow: Understanding Maya society through daily water management

The drop that makes a vase overflow: Understanding Maya society through daily water management

The precarious conviviality of watermills

Towards an Archaeological Theory of Infrastructure

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