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Marburg Water Lab
The Marburg Water Lab (MWL) is an initiative of the Institute for Critical Studies in Culture and History at the University of Marburg for international and interdisciplinary networking and visibility of work in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies on the topic of water.
Germany's National Water Strategy, which was adopted in 2023, was developed in a participatory process according to the understanding of political science and is a first important step for the future of water policies in Germany and beyond. One of the overarching goals clearly stated in the strategy, is to raise awareness of urgent water issues. With working groups, workshops and joint multimodal forms of presentation and publication, the Marburg Water Lab contributes to this from a humanities, social and cultural science perspective.
Overarching goals of the Lab are:
- to collaboratively research the cultural and social implications of the topic across disciplines,
- to strengthen awareness for and visibility of existing work,
- to raise awareness of the entanglements between the global North and the global South,
- to network more closely with multipliers from the arts and media.
We are planning several activities in the near future. To stay informed go ahead and follow our instagram channel.
You are interested in networking on water issues? Then get in touch with us:
Activities and Announcements
Activities
We meet regularly to discuss texts, please contact us at waterwor@uni-marburg.de if you are interested in joining the group.
Upcoming events
At the 45th DGEKW Congress "Surprise, Chance, Contingency. On the indeterminate in society and science" in Kiel (2025)
POST-CON 1 | Sat., 4.10.2025, 14:30-17:30 Walking with Water - along Kiel's water worlds (Juliana Lux and Nada Rosa Schroer)2025
The Marburg Water Lab has materialized! Room +1/116 in Deutschhausstraße 3, 35037 Marburg is dedicated to the Marburg Water Lab.
The Marburg Water Lab has been founded.
2021
Digital international conference: Waterworlding. Cultural-scientific approaches to multiple waters.
Publications and Lectures
2025
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina and Alain Müller. 2025. Wasser_Berg_Erfahrung. Ein Gespräch zwischen Ina Dietzsch und Alain Müller. In: Eggmann, Sabine / Röthl, Martina / Sieferle, Barbara (eds.): Erfahrung. Empirisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Reichweiten. (Münster, in press).
Dietzsch, Ina. 2025. Counting Water for an African Future? Smart Water Billing in South Africa. (co-authored with Amber Abrams). In: Junck, Leah / Yeku, James Tunde (eds.): African Digital Cultures: Platforms, Publics, Infrastructures. (Amsterdam University Press, in press).
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Negotiating Prevention. Paper at the Future Water Institute, University of Cape Town, 1.4.2025.
2024
Publications
Lux, Juliana. 2024. Bericht. Research Studio 2024 Extractive Pasts, Sustainable Futures?. March 11-18, 2024, Dresden/Lausitz. In: Friedreich, Sönke / Spieker, Ira: Volkskunde in Sachsen. Jahrbuch für Kulturanthropologie 36/2024: 217-224. Ilmtal-Weinstraße: Jonas Verlag.
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Waterworlding. Wasser posthumanistisch gelesen. Eichstätt, 11.11.2024.
2023
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina. 2023. Von Pfützen und Lücken. Urbanes Wasser posthumanistisch gelesen. In: Oliwia Murawska / Torsten Cress / Annika Schlitte: Posthuman? Perspektiven auf Natur/Kultur. Tagungsband zum 4. Mainzer Symposium der Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften am Forschungsschwerpunkt SoCuM, Mainz, September 19-20, 2019. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink.
2022
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina. 2022. Wenn Wasser die Natur verlässt… Wie Humanwissenschaften Wasser denken. In: Wasserwirtschaft 5/2022.
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Urban Waters. Modern Water Decentered. Paper at the World Canals Conference 2022, Leipzig, 03.06.2022.
Dietzsch, Ina. Hydro-soziale Verflechtungen, Hydrokolonialismus, Hydrofeminismus... Zugänge eines kritischen Posthumanismus. Lecture at the Institute Colloquium EE Graz, 27.1.2022.
2021
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina. 2021. Waterworlds Revisited. In: Hamburger Journal for Cultural Anthropology 2021, Issue 13 (Welt. Wissen. Gestalten. Themenheft zum 42. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde in Hamburg 2019), pp. 79-95.
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Drawing Virtual Water. Paper at the workshop Anthropology Beyond Text? Experiments, Devices, and Platforms of Multimodal Ethnographic Practice, July 22-23, 2021, Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology, IfEE, HU Berlin.
Dietzsch, Ina. The Rhythms of Urban Water. Paper at the Annual Conference STS: Reconfigured Time-Spaces: Techno-Digital Mediations, and Their Multiple Rhythms, 15-17.02.2021.
2020
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina. 2020. ANT. In: Tauschek, Markus / Heimerdinger, Timo (eds.): Kulturanthropologisch argumentieren. UTB, pp. 77-99.
2019
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Waterworlds Revisited. Keynote at the 42nd Congress Deutschen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde in Hamburg, 10.10.2019.
Dietzsch, Ina. The Upper Rhine. Mapping a Fluid Ensemble. Paper at SIEF 2019 Santiago de Compostela: Track Changes: Reflecting on a Transforming World, April 14-17, 2019.
2018
Lectures
Dietzsch, Ina. Kulturanthropologische Annäherungen an Wasser als topographisches und topologisches Thema. Lecture in 'Denkräume der ‚kulturellen Topographien' at the English Department of the University of Basel, 07.11.2018.
2017
Publications
Dietzsch, Ina. 2017. Klimawandel. Kulturanthropologische Perspektiven darauf, wie ein abstrakter Begriff erfahrbar gemacht wird. In Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 1/2017: 21-40.
Courses and Lectures at the Institute for Critical Studies in Culture and History
Summer semester 2025
Empirical Research - fieldwork in the context of water
Summer semester 2023
Interdisciplinary excursion to Lake Edersee: Water worlds - between myth and technology (Neue Deutsche Literatur, Medienwissenschaft, EKW)
Winter semester 2022 and summer semester 2023
Fluidity study project. Empirical research about everything that flows, should flow or is prevented from flowing
Winter semester 2021
Hydro-social entanglements, hydrocolonialism, hydrofeminism .... Why water is an important intersection for future questions in cultural studies
Winter semester 2020
Water as an object and approach of cultural studies research
The Lab - Some Inspiration
As Marburg Water Lab we are inspired by the idea of the Lab:
LAB by Marie Blønd
The Laboratory,
Originally considered a confined space for testing hypotheses, ‘making evidence’
For the lonely scientist to “remove” or distance himself from the experiment
Repeating experiments through trials of strength to become ‘matters of fact’Puncturing the sterile lab environment
Experimentation evolves with methodological mutations
To understand sociomaterial worlds Interventions and implosions
Attract knowledge nurtured in other disciplines
Inviting fellows and collaborators from other world-makingsSeeking new lab tools and blackboxes to unpack
Speculating through feminist cartographies
Creating meaning with newfound language
With vibrations from curious and talented student explorations
Softening institutional hierarchies adhering to metric driven practices
Performative experimentation in practice
A transformation
DiffractionA Lab, re-configured,
She hosts ‘matters of concern’
Experiments with co-created epistemological expressions
Ingredients considered socio-techno-material and located
Toolkits overflowing with past-present-future
Mixing people - culture - disciplines - genders - histories
Maintaining and nourishing through
Mentorship and Care
Distributing ownership in an egalitarian community of mutual respect…Haunted by The Laboratory and institutional power relations
Imagining experimentation as a form of practice and questioning
Countering the performative norms, hierarchies, and metrics
Generating alternate motivational factors for participation
Challenging institutional borders
Experimentation as plural conviviality
Spurring new and generative questions
Casting spells of trust and empowerment
Cloaked in transparent vulnerability…Haunted by The Laboratory and institutional power relations
Stays curious Challenges
Attracts
Involves
Collaborates
Evolves
…Haunted by The Laboratory and institutional power relationsLiterature:
Blønd, Marie. 2023. "LAB". In Winthereik, Britt Ross. Reclaiming Technology A Poetic scientific Vocabulary, 66-69. Skørping: Ctrl+Alt+Delete Books.