Rising Waters
A multidisciplinary research project situated in the former wetlands of Philadelphia and Mumbai- two cities that have since been formed, extended and differentiated by historic relations with water.
Rising Waters asks how ongoing urban processes rooted in colonial and modernist land-sea relations recapitulate and reorient histories of vulnerability and inequality in times of climate change. In these uncertain and toxic times, how might we make space for social justice and non-human natures in and along rising urban waters? This expansive, collaborative project of educators, students, planners, health professionals, artists and community members in Philadelphia and Mumbai seeks to explore the futures of river and coastal cities in a time where the lines between land and water are muddied all around us.
Project Co-Directors
Dr. Nikhil Anand, Assistant Professor, School of Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Dr. Bethany Wiggin, Associate Professor, School of Arts & Sciences, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Graduate Group Member in Comparative Literature and English, and Faculty Director, Penn Program in Environmental Humanities