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.