Going against the flow. Reaction to Veronica Strang

Abstract

In her discussion article ‘Fluid consistencies. Material relationality in human engagements with water’, Veronica Strang argues that ‘water provides a useful focus for thinking aboutrelationshipsbetween things and persons and betweenmaterialproperties and meanings’ (Strang 2014, 133, emphasis added). Water permeates organic things and flows and connects in a multi-scalar way. Therefore her article emphasizes ‘how material and social processes combine to provide both fluidity and consistency at every level of human–non-human engagement’ (ibid., 133). Ontologically speaking, the emphasis on fluid relations and processes makes her arelationist, i.e. objects emerge from their internal or external relations (Harman 2009). I will summarize my reactions to her article in three major points.