Water Places: Cultural, Social and More-Than-Human Geographies of Nature

Abstract

Cultural, social and more-than-human approaches to nature research are largely held apart in the discipline of human geography. In this paper I argue that these three approaches can be brought together to good effect. The paper presents a situated account of ‘water places’ in inland Australia—namely the artesian bores, boredrains and boredrain wetlands of the Birdsville Track—in order to demonstrate that together, these three approaches can reveal the complex interactions that form particular places, and comprise a more-than-human world. This account explores the layers of interaction that have formed these water places, including their insertion into the landscape through drilling, and their various roles: in opening the country for stock; in the Australian colonial imagination as means for developing the inland and the nation; as tools for displacing Aboriginal peoples from their country; as a focus for life in the desert; as key to mining and petroleum exploration; and in local controversy. It illustrates their physical and conceptual transformation from ‘bores’ to ‘wetlands’. The paper argues that cultural, social and more-than-human geographies are needed in order to effectively govern human relations with ‘nature’, and to better understand how to live in and with a more-than-human world.