Paper for Folklore, Geography and Environment: Ways of Knowing Water, Landscape and Climate in the Anthropocene. The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2022 at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull

Olczak, Susie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9615-5514 and Keech, Daniel ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4112-9030 (2022) Paper for Folklore, Geography and Environment: Ways of Knowing Water, Landscape and Climate in the Anthropocene. The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2022 at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull. In: Folklore, Geography and Environment: Ways of Knowing Water, Landscape and Climate in the Anthropocene. The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2022, 2022, The Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull. (Submitted)

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Abstract

Daniel Keech, Senior Research Fellow Countryside and Community Research Institute, University of Gloucestershire and Susie Olczak, Lecturer in Fine Art, University of Gloucestershire Narratives of the extreme – can it get any wetter? Populations in the Panamanian jungle and the Somerset Levels and Moors have, for centuries, planned their lives around living with water. In Somerset, year-round farming is possible thanks to a network of hi-tech sluices and ancient rhynes that drain what was, essentially, marshy wilderness. Panama’s isolated Darien National Park experiences 330 days of rain a year. In our presentation, we examine (beyond the reality of living with water, which in these regions is routine), what happens when the extreme gets wetter. A decade ago, consecutive floods in Somerset caused three months of inundation, leading to physical and social upheaval not experienced for a generation. In Panama the already wet climate is getting wetter. Our different methodological approaches as artist and geographer are united by interest in the idea that climate change is challenging people who live with extremes of water, to cope with more. On one hand, this raises alarms about the urgency of climate change. On the other, people are discussing hopeful and adaptive local futures, too often crowded out by policy and scientific narratives.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Arts, Culture and Environment
Depositing User:	Susie Olczak
Date Deposited:	15 Apr 2026 15:44
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2026 08:00
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/16132

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