Thinking with Wetlands

Working Group

To ecologists, intact wetlands, that is areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water—both natural or artificial— permanent or temporary with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt are “the superheroes of the natural world”. They are among the most biodiverse ecosystems of our planet. As buffering zones, they protect coastlines. As natural carbon-captures, peat-forming wetlands are key for climate mitigation.
For us historians, wetlands are unruly landscapes where neither the historical descriptions nor the landscapes’ treatment align with modern classifications. During the early modern period water engineers from the Netherlands, for instance, would travel across Europe with technical one-size-fits all solutions. They were part of a development of wetland drainage and cultivation that has led to as much as 87 percent of wetland loss worldwide in the past 300 years, with 50 percent of this since 1900 (Davidson 2014).
In history, these developments have traditionally been inscribed into a tale of alteration from an imagined nature to an equally imagined culture for the sake of health, modernization, or progress. In our work, in turn, we put wetlands’ fluid and ambivalent nature at the center of analysis to study the ambiguous and often contested visions, terminologies, and experiences of human-wetland relationships.
Our working group “Thinking with wetlands” meets regularly for reading sessions, exchange on our work or wetland walks and excursions. We are a collaboration of the Institute for European Cultural History (IEK), the Environmental Science Center (WZU), and the Bukovina Institute, and have received SEED funding from the University of Augsburg.