Molly Desorgher
Title: Ethnographic stratigraphy for the Anthropocene
Abstract: The Anthropocene can be characterised by its construction of “natures” and their subsequent quantification and extraction as resources. Thinking about water beyond this capitalist commodification therefore demands multidisciplinary methods through which waters can be understood as specific bodies which are both social and hydrological. Combining the geological method of stratigraphy with the anthropological method of multispecies ethnography provides a potential route for such hydrosocial thinking about a river and its entangled community, opening possibilities for more just and mutualistic relations with urban waterways. Future work will apply this new methodology to the River Soar in Leicester.
Bio: Molly Desorgher is a sailor, wild swimmer, and PhD student at the University of Leicester. Their work blends methods from geography, geology, and anthropology in search of new ways of thinking through human/more-than-human/waterway relations in the Anthropocene.