Downstream: Reimagining Water (Paperback or Softback)

downstream: reimagining water brings together artists, writers, scientists, scholars, environmentalists, and activists who understand that our shared human need for clean water is crucial to building peace and good relationships with one another and the planet. This book explores the key roles that culture, arts, and the humanities play in supporting healthy water-based ecology and provides local, global, and Indigenous perspectives on water that help to guide our societies in a time of global warming. The contributions range from practical to visionary, and each of the four sections closes with a poem to encourage personal freedom along with collective care.
This book contributes to the formation of an intergenerational, culturally inclusive, participatory water ethic. Such an ethic arises from intellectual courage, spiritual responsibilities, practical knowledge, and deep appreciation for human dependence on water for a meaningful quality of life. Downstream illuminates how water teaches us interdependence with other humans and living creatures, both near and far.

Rita Wong is a writer, teacher, and waterkeeper. She is the author of three books of poetry and the co-author of several collaborative works, most recently, beholden: a poem as long as the river (2018), with the poet Fred Wah. With Dorothy Christian (Secwepemc and Syilx Nations), Wong edited downstream: reimagining water (WLU Press, 2017). She is an associate professor of Critical + Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she teaches classes in the humanities and creative writing.