A fisherman and his fishing equipment in the Soure Marine Extractive Reserve during the late afternoon. (Photo taken by Neves during research carried out between 2015 and 2019)
Cydney Seigerman, Donald Nelson, Evandro Neves and Pedro Paulo Soares
Water management structures and decisions--as well as research related to them--enact ethics, or value systems, which are frequently implicit in discussion and action. Often based on economic considerations, ethics quietly guide decisions with little conscious awareness of underlying value systems. However, as water delivery systems continue to experience increasing strain, and water shortages and inequalities in water access continue to proliferate, an explicit consideration of ethics is one way to begin to address current shortcomings in water management. At the same time, as researchers form part of the systems they study, it is important to reflexively evaluate how researchers contribute to water dynamics. Ethics as an analytical lens creates space to evaluate the roles of researchers in the water systems we study, to reevaluate management options, and to promote more sustainable and equitable practices.
During the final BNRGI meeting of 2020, we used ethics as a lens to examine water, water-related research, and the implications of our presence as researchers in local water relations. Ethics are “coherent systems of value” that indicate how we should behave in particular circumstances and help us to define proper objectives and acceptable pathways to achieve those goals (Groenfeldt 2013). The co-organizers--Donald Nelson (UGA), Evandro Neves (UFPA), Cydney Seigerman (UGA), and Pedro Paulo Soares (UFPA)--considered dimensions of ethics in their research throughout Brazil on water management, water conflicts, and water as integral to socioecological memory. The meeting highlighted how ethics and values play integral roles in decisions and actions involving water. In this post, we discuss the water-ethics frameworks introduced during the meeting, as well as reflexive questions about ethics as researchers.
Figure 1. Groenfeldt’s (2013) typology of water ethics visualized as overlapping systems of environmental, social, cultural, and economic values.
Ethics are about decisions and behavior and have far-reaching implications for defining and distributing risks, benefits, and responsibilities associated with water management decisions. As Nelson highlighted during the meeting, water ethics may be categorized as social, cultural, economic, or environmental (Groenfeldt 2013). While it can be helpful to distinguish between different categories of ethics in order to understand the values, or criteria that guide the evaluation, judgment, and attitudes about water, it is important to remember that dimensions of these categories may overlap. Water values and ethics may fit into one or more of these categories, and as such, together, the categories may be thought of as a four-way Venn diagram (Figure 1).
Figure 2. Cardoso de Oliveira and Cardoso de Oliveira’s (1996) ethical spheres of action, subsequently elaborated in the context of water management by Soares (2016).
The categorization of water ethics can help elucidate the different values that underpin decisions and actions related to water management. In addition, ethical spheres of action are a useful heuristic to understand the dynamics of water management across levels of analysis (Cardoso de Oliveira e Cardoso de Oliveira 1996; Soares 2016). During the meeting, Soares explained how subjects (different individuals or groups, including residents, technicians, and international institutions), relationships, and values can vary across macro-, meso-, and microethical spheres of action (Figure 2).
In Belém (PA), different facets of city-water relations are highlighted across these spheres: whereas the macroethical sphere is made up of global determinants, such as forms of international financing and the models chosen for urban water projects under the guidance of international institutions, the mesoethical sphere involves the carrying out of public work projects and subjects including water managers and technicians. The microethical sphere comprises the populations directly impacted--and hopefully benefited by--the urban public works projects, and the relationships and values that constitute their lived experience. We can understand each of the ethical spheres of action as encompassing the types of ethics explicated in Groenfeldt’s categorization (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Groenfedt’s typology of water ethics integrated into the three ethical spheres of action developed by Cardoso de de Oliveira e Cardoso de Oliveira (1996) and Soares (2016).
The dynamics of water relationships within ethical spheres of action impact and are impacted by the water ethics of particular groups and individuals. In our meeting, Neves explained how conflicts between artisanal fisherfolks and landowners resulted from differing views of ownership and rights to particular water resources in the Marine Extractive Reserve of Soure, located on the Marajó archipelago of the Brazilian Amazon. In this region, landowning farmers who consider themselves owners of springs within the protected areas prevent artisanal fisherfolk from fishing there, even though fisherfolk are guaranteed the right to these waters through the Federal Real Use of Rights Concession Contract (CCDRU). Seigerman’s research in Ceará further highlights the dynamics of water relations and how water-related conflicts often involve disputes about disparities in water access and who (e.g., rural farmers, large-scale irrigators, or urban populations) has the right to what water resources. Water-related processes are both social and ecological, as dams, local and state-level policies, and rainfall patterns interact and form part of how water is understood in the region. Water ethics involves questions about the regulation of water as a resource and also expands conversations to examine local values and meanings of water.
As we use water ethics as a lens to study the dynamics of water management, it is equally important as researchers to evaluate our own roles in the areas where we work. Seigerman explained the ethics of care, collaboration, and reciprocity they bring to their research, including their ongoing work with theatre groups, dancers, institutions, and local communities in Ceará.
The roles we take on in our work--from scientists to artists, political activists, and community members--and the frameworks we develop affect the complex relations that comprise our areas of study. While we may or may not actively seek to change these dynamics, our framings impact how these relations are represented and understood. In the post-meeting comments, Gregory Thaler (UGA) raised questions about whether it is possible to develop approaches that do not “violate” the multidimensionality of the socioecological realities we study. How one responds to this question will depend on their worldviews and understanding of what makes up reality. Different perspectives will lead to different responses, yet reflecting on how our theoretical approaches can impact the questions we ask and the observations we make can serve as a reminder of how our sets of values, or ethics, as researchers are fundamental to our research practices.
Works cited and further readings
Biesel, S. and D.R. Nelson. 2019. A Importância da ética para a gestão da água. In Adapta: gestão adaptativa do risco climático de seca, pp. 407 - 418. Fortaleza: Expressão Gráfica e Editora.
Cardoso de Oliveira, R. and L. R. Cardoso de Oliveira. 1996. Ensaios antropológicos sobre moral e ética. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro.
Conquergood, D. 2002. Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research. TDR (1988-), 46(2), 145-156.
Groenfeldt, D. 2013. Water ethics: a values approach to solving the water crisis. Routledge.
Soares, P. P. d. M. A. 2016. Memória ambiental na bacia do UNA : estudo antropológico sobre transformações urbanas e políticas públicas de saneamento em Belém (PA). (PhD). Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre.
Oliver, K. 2015. Witnessing, Recognition, and Response Ethics. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 48(4), 473-493.