The International Meeting “Rios en movimiento”: interweaving riverside communities, social movements and academia

By Ana Arbelaez Trujillo

The global nature of the dynamics that affect rivers, bringing many of them close to ecological collapse and provoking political, cultural and socioeconomic crises, makes it essential to scale up and broaden place-based river struggles. Therefore, the international meeting of the Riverhood and River Commons projects was a space to exchange learnings about the problems of rivers worldwide, the main struggles, care practices and demands of those who inhabit them.

This meeting aimed to approach the rivers and their movements from different perspectives and provide a space for conversation, allowing close interaction among riverside communities, social movements, and academia. To this end, diverse art expressions played a central role. We used diverse methodologies for weaving conversations during the event, including audiovisuals, artistic pieces, river walks, alternative cartographies, songs, and academic presentations. Furthermore, we had a permanent art exhibition with the work of the collectives “NaaK Memorias del Agua”, “Entre Ríos” and “Orika” at the creative gallery Bestiario.

During the event, we also visited several of the micro-watersheds of the Kumanday bio-geo-territory: Cuenca Taguambí, Cuenca Quebrada Olivares, and Cuenca Río Chinchiná. These territorial visits were an invitation to understand the river as much more than a continuous stream of water flowing into the sea and an opportunity to learn about the work of local collectives such as Eco-finca La Soledad, Senderos de Luz, Líderes Alto del Castillo, Comunativa, Huerta Urbana NAKSI, and Tierra Libre.

The International Meeting “Rios en movimiento” was organised as one of the knowledge exchange activities of the Riverhood and River Commons research projects and had the support of Alianza Justicia Hídrica, Universidad de Caldas, Centro Cultural Universitario Rogelio Salmina, Corporación Nodo – NaaK Memorias del agua, Movimiento Socio-ambiental Kumanday, Natural Seeds Alliance, Tejido de Colectivos Unitierra Manizales y Suroccidente Colombiano,  Tejinando Sentipensares (Tejido de pluriveresidades de a pie), Asociación Broederlijk Delen y CENSAT Agua Viva.

 

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