Henry M.S. 2022. Hydronarratives: Water, environmental justice, and a just transition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. 232 p. ISBN: 978-1-4962-3375-2 (paper). US$30.
(URL: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496227898/)
Larry A. Swatuk
University of Waterloo, lswatuk@uwaterloo.ca
To cite this Review: Swatuk, L. 2024. Review of “Hydronarratives: Water, environmental justice, and a just transition". University of Nebraska Press, 2022, by Matthew Henry, Water Alternatives, http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/boh/item/370-hydronarrative
In Hydronarratives, Matthew Henry presents the reader with a compelling proposition: despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, not only is a just transition possible, evidence of its existence is all around us. More specifically: ‘This book is concerned with how creative responses to water-related environmental injustices combine to form new narratives that support an approach to environmental decision-making driven by a recognition of past injustice and trauma and a commitment to reparative processes, programs, and policies – that is, a just transition’ (pp. 6-7). With a focus primarily on art and (popular) culture, Henry illustrates numerous examples of deliberate, sometimes dramatic, and always compelling push back against the tidal swell of neoliberal capitalism. Quoting Julie Sze, Henry argues ‘cultural productions are uniquely positioned to “compose a counterhegemonic soundtrack for a restorative environmental justice politics grounded in solidarity”’ (p. 6). The hegemony being countered is described in a variety of ways: ‘racial extractivism’ (p. 33) founded on a ‘logic of elimination’ (p. 27); ‘racial capitalism’ (p. 58); ‘the maldistribution of financial and political capital … designed to protect, first and foremost, the interests of the neoliberal regime’ (p. 115).
Henry makes his case in six tightly written chapters – four case studies sandwiched between a theory-heavy introduction and an advocacy-oriented conclusion. The five cases (including that in the conclusion) are drawn from experiences with water across the United States of America: Chapter 1 focuses on ‘decolonizing drought’ in the Lower Colorado River Basin; Chapter 2 imagines a just transition beyond racial capitalism in Flint, Michigan; Chapter 3 centres on ‘extractive fictions and post-extraction futurisms’ in Appalachia; Chapter 4 entails a discussion of the Green New Deal through the lens of post-Katrina New Orleans; and the conclusion ponders upon a community-driven just transition in ‘the energy colony’ (p. 149) of Wyoming. Each chapter follows a similar layout: the author presents a short history of race-class/environmental disaster followed by several examples of resistance, leading to the conclusion that, although ‘[t]he story of water in the United States is one of systemic disruption and social injustice … new narratives are critical to imagining and working toward just, sustainable futures’ (p. 157). These ‘new narratives’ are not simply fabrications of the imagination (though the author draws heavily on a selection of novels), they are imagined futures based on actually existing realities. In the case of Indigenous peoples in the lower Colorado River basin, the counter-narrative is founded on what Whyte calls ‘collective continuance’, defined as ‘a society’s capacity to self-determine how to adapt to change in ways that avoid reasonably preventable harms’ (quoted in Henry, p. 28). In the case of the Hohokam, collective continuance manifests in the preservation of cultural heritage – i.e. the evidence of an irrigation-base society that thrived for at least two millennia – not only as proof of existence, but as proof that the logic of settler colonialism founded on the elimination of ‘backward’ peoples through a civilizing mission (p. 31) was not only wrong-headed but an abject failure. Put differently, not only are Indigenous people still present, evidence of their robustness on the land stands in stark contrast to the mounting struggles of high-modern, command and control systems of resource management today as they rub against the rough facts of climate change.
Hydronarratives makes for compelling and enjoyable reading. From my point of view, Henry’s approach sits firmly within the activist tradition of prefigurative politics (see representative case studies in the special issue of The Journal of Social and Political Psychology available here: https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/issue/view/227), though the author makes no mention of this literature. If I may be permitted one criticism of the book, it regards the methodology which he locates within ‘narrative research in humanities and social sciences’ (pp. 12-16). For Henry, ‘environmental justice issues, “must be understood historically and discursively” rather than through a singular focus on public policy … [L]iterary texts and other cultural representations can “convert into image and narrative” what Rob Nixon has called the slow violence of environmental degradation afflicting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable inhabitants’ (p. 13). Moreover, ‘the narrative focus’ can also ‘prompt action through participatory governance’ (p. 14) and ‘storytelling can be viewed as data itself, rather than just a means to collect data … narrative methods can foster a more coproductive process wherein community values drive action’ (p. 15). While I have no problem with any of this, I am led to wonder about the selection of literary texts and (community-based) projects chosen as ‘data’. Why these and not others? As the author himself notes, there is a massive literature focused on climate catastrophe and ‘dystopian futures’. Through his reading of a particular selection of texts, Henry pushes back at this nihilistic narrative arguing, for example, that climate change notwithstanding, Indigenous people have been living a dystopian reality ever since the first settler arrived and have been demonstrating resilience ever since. The same is said regarding ‘freedom dreams’ in Flint, Michigan, where the well-known water crisis is simply the latest manifestation of a decades-long struggle with socio-ecological change fostered by racial capitalism. To illustrate resilience the author presents rather esoteric examples of activism. In the Flint case, these include José Casas’s ethnodrama Flint; Mel Chin’s and Tracy Reese’s ‘Flint Fit’ project involving the remanufacture of plastic bottles into garments; and the public art project Greetings from Flint, comprised of a series of murals. To be sure, the various examples presented point toward a counterhegemonic force among the marginalized and dispossessed. But what to make of the author’s generalized claim regarding possibilities for sweeping social change in support of a just transition? Without doubt, I for one want to believe him. But my fear is that the hegemonic forces Henry aims to displace are both disinterested and unaffected.
