3. Nature Futures Framework (NFF) and Human-River Encounter
Sites (HRES): Potential Frameworks for Harmonious River-Human
Relationships
This section presents two possible frameworks, namely the Nature
Futures Framework (NFF) and Human-River Encounter Sites (HRES),
through which new materialist thinking may be implemented in the
building of more harmonious coexistent river-human relationships moving
forward. That is, the NFF and
HRES are introduced as examples of potential conceptual frameworks for
developing harmonious coexistent river-human relationships in the
21st Century.
Pereira et al. (2020) proposes that transformative change in the
building of harmonious river-human relationships can be supported
through the creation of the Nature Futures Framework (NFF). The NFF is
considered a heuristic tool in developing “novel scenarios that
incorporate diverse intervention towards positive future trajectories
for nature and nature’s contribution to people” (Pereira et al., 2020,
p. 1173). The NFF is further considered a boundary object to facilitate
plural policy and knowledge viewpoints and values of nature at multiple
levels. The aim of the NFF is to develop multiscale scenarios of
desirable futures for nature and humans simultaneously. Thus, the value
of the NFF is argued to be its acceptance of multiple knowledges,
including new materialist perspectives, in developing multiscale
scenarios of desired and mutually beneficial human-river relationships
(Pereira et al., 2020).
It is further argued that the NFF as conceptualised is founded by three
values/concepts; namely, “nature for nature, nature for society, and
nature as culture” (Pereira et al., 2020, p. 1176). However, in light
of new materialist thinking, an interpretation of two of this model’s
concepts/values can be that the “nature for society” and “nature as
culture” values retain a very human-centric valuing of a
nature-society/culture relationships. Not wanting to throw the baby out
with the bathwater, a more aligned re-conceptualisation of NFF with new
materialist thinking may be achieved by encompassing the three
foundational values of NFF into a holistic de-centred human concept of
“nature within society (and) society within nature”. Within this
concept it is assumed that society encompasses culture and not that
culture is separate from society. In this, a nature within society (and)
society within nature conceptualisation allows a de-centring of humans
as the central influencing agent in river-human relationships and an
establishment of rivers as an equal agential force in which rivers and
humans act as joint agents and actors in a holistic and interconnected
connectivity and dynamic between landscape, environment, and community.
The intention is to reflect nature and society as embedded, entangled
and interconnected within each other as a complex whole in space and
place, mutually influencing and (re)shaping the being of the other
(Castree, 2003). Acknowledging this embedded, entangled, and
interconnected ontology provides a basis for conceptualising pathways
towards developing and building harmonious river-human relationships and
interactions. Thus, the NFF can facilitate the development of more
harmonious coexistent relationships which provides less destructive
futures for both river systems and humans.
Re-conceptualising the NFF incorporating a nature within society (and)
society within nature as an embedded, entangled, and interconnected
whole provides an opportunity to develop a new agenda for
decision-makers and practitioners towards restoring healthy
relationships between rivers and urban areas as
Human-River Encounter Sites
(HRES) (Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2021). The intention of HRES is to
regenerate harmonious place-based relations with the (river) environment
in which human practices and activities acknowledge river systems as key
actors and agents influencing and shaping the development of landscape
and community (Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2021).
A positive aspect of HRES compared to other frameworks is that it does
not promote the human as the dominant partner in river-human
relationships (Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2021). The HRES model is built on
the pillars of “health [of all living entities of the environment and
humans], safety [safe communities including from flooding through
the protection offered by the riparian zone], functionality [the
multifunctionality and connectivity of the river system needs to be
incorporated within planning and decision making by urban designers],
accessibility [for all organisms not just for the privilege of
humans], collaboration [of all stakeholders including river and
ecological systems], and awareness [moral and ethical respect of
river systems as key stakeholders in its own management and use]”
(Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2021, p. 4). Thus, the HRES provides for the
acknowledgement of the river system as a stakeholder within local
communities due to its influence and shaping of community development
and its social dynamics, for example through hydrosocial relations,
including flooding (Linton & Budds, 2014; Parsons, 2019). In this
sense, rivers and humans co-produce biological and cultural
relationships in which humans and society exist within nature and,
simultaneously, nature exists within society as corporeal experiences
(Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2021).
Applying a HRES framework which adopts a nature within society (and)
society within nature perspective provide a sound foundation to
acknowledge the river as a stakeholder and an active agent influencing
landscape and human practices. From this position, humans may implement
a stewardship of and over their own behaviour approach rather than
“imposing” idealised stewardship principles upon the agencies of river
systems. This in turn may deliver a better place-based foundation for
developing and building local harmonious coexistent river-human
relationships into the 21st Century. This can be
considered what Arias-Maldonado (2013) identifies as “open
sustainability” whereby “[t]here is no single sustainability, but
a whole range of different, even simultaneous, possibilities” (p. 441).
Such a perspective aligns well with developing and building coexistence
harmonious and mutually beneficial river-human relationships in which
river systems and humans co-produce landscapes that support human and
nonhuman communities as HRES. However, this will require “[a]s a
priority, our intimacy with Nature [including rivers] …”
being “… rekindled” (Hosken, 2011, p. 25). And through a
rekindled intimacy, the river system’s “voice” or performativity, as
expressed through agency, tensions, and change can begin to be heard,
known, and understood relative to river-human co-agency and harmonious
coexistence. In other words, it “… is about places [as a river
landscape] working on people” in which the river system speaks,
creates, and teachers (Larsen & Johnson, 2016, p. 153) and humans learn
to relate to and live with rivers harmoniously.