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UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesDELTA - Volatile Waters and the Hydrosocial Anthropocene in Major River Deltas

Delta Worlds

Life between Land and Water

by Franz Krause, Nora Horisberger, Benoit Ivars and Sandro Simon

„Nature keeps remaking the delta,“ people living at the mouths of great rivers say.

Four anthropologists describe life in river deltas in Myanmar, Canada, Brazil and Senegal. Through numerous portraits, short texts and photo stories, they provide insights into everyday life in these volatile landscapes. Deltas can be seen as "hotspots" of global change and as “barometers” for coming upheavals worldwide. Based on their ethnographic research, the authors tell us how colonial shadows, constantly shifting terrain and flexible traditions are reflected in people’s everyday lives. The book provides insight into the different – but often very similar – ways of living together in river deltas.

With 198 illustrations and maps

Ayeyarwady-Delta, Myanmar

Mackenzie-Delta, Kanada / Canada

Parnaíba-Delta, Brasilien /Brazil

Sine-Saloum-Delta, Senegal

You can order the book here if you prefer not to visit a bookstore due to the pandemic.

The coffee-table book is bilingual in German and English.

©2021 Delta Project, Reimer Verlag and the authors

www.reimer-verlag.de

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Reviews

"With reports about life in river deltas, a remarkable coffee-table book inspires to rethink [...] The insights into the lives of delta inhabitants from Brazil, Canada, Myanmar and Senegal have a powerful effect on me. Apart from maps or satellite images as deltas are usually presented to us." (Michael Schnepf, Buchkultur)
"This 'alternative' approach from within in contrast to the above provides a different understanding of the deltas and constitutes the key strength of the book. In other words, the authors through story-telling force us to rethink about life in river deltas" (Mohammad Zaman, The New Nation, 15 March 2022)
"A very informative book that gives insight into the different forms of coexistence in river deltas and at the same time also shows how these different forms of life are ultimately typologically often very similar. One marvels over the protean shape and formative power of our world and its expression in the changing nature. A thought-provoking, beautifully designed work." (Studiosus Intern - Das Wissen der Welt, März 2022)
"This is not your ordinary social science textbook. First, the text is both in English and German throughout. [...] There is a compelling sense of collective achievement in the writing. While there is an "authorship" to these texts, the authors seemingly disappear in the stories themselves. Second, at 223 pages the book contains beautiful photos, maps, and other illustrations on virtually every page - and yet, it holds a radical edge and analysis that reveals itself not in grand theoretical claims but in rather subtle ways, as the multiple, intertwined narratives unfold." (Ulrich Oslender, AntipodeOnline, August 2022).
"Distancing itself from cartographic representations and other sweeping accounts of deltas, which tend to screen out inhabitants’ viewpoints, the book underlines the importance of research conducted at human scale." (Lukas Ley, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, January 2023)