46. Rethinking Rivers as Wetness with Dilip Da Cunha

“Rivers are products of a particular moment in time, and that moment in time can be clarified with the hydrologic cycle. The Hydrologic cycle goes through various forms of wetness. One particular part of wetness is water, and that time…when water is very visible as water has become our anchor…”

We live in a complex ecology of "wetness" that has been reduced down to the "ontological violence" called a "river", argues Dilip Da Cunha in today's conversation, based on his new book The Invention of Rivers: Alexander's Eye and Ganga's Descent (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). An architect and planner, Dilip is a Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning at Harvard GSD. He is partner with Anuradha Mathur in the practice Mathur/Da Cunha.

Timestamp Outline

2:44 The colonization of rivers 
4:27 “Rivers are products of a particular moment in time, and that moment in time can be clarified with the hydrologic cycle. The Hydrologic cycle goes through various forms of wetness. One particular part of wetness is water, and that time…when water is very visible as water has become our anchor…”-DD
7:04 “…there is something radically wrong, because we’ve been trying to hold this water in rivers for centuries, and they’ve constantly defied us. So I’m asking this question: is India a river landscape, or is it an ocean of rain?”-DD
8:20 An alternate ontology, rather than an alternate knowledge 
10:59 “Why are you questioning this line?”-VP
13:50 Rain and Rivers 
15:45 Discussion of flooding in India 
17:20 The Ganga River 
20:00 Native American Mound building surrounding the Mississippi system
22:15 Inhabiting wetness 
23:06 Looking at the world sectionally 
29:20 “…I wouldn’t call it migration…[cultures who used mound building strategies] just work with a consciousness, that certain activities were more appropriate to higher wetnesses…”-DD
32:13 China’s harnessing of the Brahmaputra  
33:29 The Indus kukur chakra civilization’s relationship to river systems
37:44 On naming and language 
39:17 Ganga vs Ganges