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RESEARCH: RELATIONAL TURN IN SUSTAINABILITY
Going upstream: a pluri-ontological analysis and proposal for Brazilian
participatory water governance
Thomas Rickard
a
, David Ludwig
b
and Raoni Rajão
a
a
Department of Cartography, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil;
b
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation group,
Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
Despite the growing emphasis on ontological pluralism in environmental policy debates,
innovation within national state environmental governance and management remains lim-
ited. This article outlines a conceptual framework for ontological inclusion and exclusion to
examine constraints and opportunities in Brazilian participatory water governance. This
involves an ontological policy cycle of the Suaçuí state river basin, a participatory process
for water-body classification, and a water-body-classification instrument. River ontologies of
the Suaçuí river basin and participatory process were found to be excluded from the water-
body classification instrument through various practices and modes of exclusion. Relational
ontologies, both indigenous and non-indigenous, were excluded. Building on the analysis of
how ontological exclusion occurred, speculative design was engaged to critically imagine a
pluralist ontological proposal. A database with diverse water inputs and outputs for more
sustainable and inclusive planning is envisaged. This proposition grounds reflections on
challenges for ontological inclusion in the context of political, economic, and social inequal-
ities. Ontological inclusion and exclusion complement classic concepts of social and epistemic
inclusion with distinct normative demands and propositions for established participatory
environmental governance.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 11 October 2023
Accepted 9 September 2024
EDITED BY
Paula Novo
KEYWORDS
Ontology; Brazil; water
governance; policy;
participation
1. Introduction
Concepts associated with the Ontological Turn in the
social science and humanities have variously drawn
attention to the possibility of plural ontologies,
worlds, or realities (Holbraad and Pedersen 2017).
This has been partly founded on the investigation
and critique regarding the so-called ‘modern’ ontol-
ogy, which is characterized as distinguishing a single,
objective nature or reality from plural cultures,
knowledges or perspectives (Descola and Lloyd
2013). Typically, nature, such as natural resources
and biodiversity, is to be understood and managed
through sciences, while culture, such as values, beliefs
and traditions, pertains to humans and their political
system (Latour 2004). Contributors to the
Ontological Turn have developed insightful analyses
and critiques by situating the modern ontology as one
among many other ontologies, including those in
which animals and plants are members of a broad
social community (de Castro and Eduardo 2004).
Strategies to engage this possibility include concep-
tualizing realities as constituted by material practices,
as notions such as worldview and perspective can
repeat the modern distinction between nature and
culture (Woolgar and Lezaun 2013). Based on such
assumptions, the possibility of communication and
collaboration is neither the search for consensus nor
the documentation of diversity – rather, emphasis is
upon evolving relationships among diverse ontologies
(Esbjörn-Hargens 2010). The methodology of partial
overlaps, for example, employs a Venn diagram for
each of the four domains of epistemology, ontology,
values, and politics to simultaneously consider over-
laps and divergences (David and El-Hani 2020).
The critiques of environmental governance arise
where a modern ontology is taken to be universal in
detriment to diverse ontologies of those impacted by
said governance (DePuy et al. 2021). In contrast to the
modern assertion of a nature that exists independent
of human representation, many indigenous and tradi-
tional ontologies have been referred to as ‘relational’,
i.e. ‘entities . . . emerge from a web or network of
relations’ (Blaser 2013, p. 20). Such relations are
formed in a diverse human and more-than-human
community that demands respect and reciprocity
(Wilson and Inkster 2018). By more-than-human, we
refer not only to animals and plants but living and
sentient ‘natural’ entities, such as forests and moun-
tains. Associated ways of knowing can be experiential,
dialogical, sensory, historical and mythological. Watts
(2013, p. 23), for example, describes Anishinaabe or
Haudenosaunee cosmologies:
CONTACT Thomas Rickard trickard1000@gmail.com
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE
2024, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2405683
https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2405683
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. . . habitats and ecosystems are better understood as
societies from an Indigenous standpoint; meaning
that they have ethical structures, interspecies treaties
and agreements, and further their ability to interpret,
understand and implement. Non-human beings are
active members of society. Not only are they active,
they also directly influence how humans organize
themselves into that society.
Scientific and economic concepts that speak to socio-
environmental values are sometimes acknowledged
by modern environmental governance and develop-
ment, such as biodiversity and income loss. Yet, for
communities with relational ontologies, these con-
cepts cannot account for the impacts they witness
and experience, such as the destruction of ‘earth-
beings’ in complex human, natural and spiritual ecol-
ogies (De la Cadena 2010; Blaser 2013). This is
important for questions of sustainability and inclu-
sion, as it suggests that participation including
diverse peoples, values, and ways of knowing may
be insufficient if different ontologies are not
accounted for. And this reaches far beyond indigen-
ous and traditional communities (WEF 2023; J. C.
Pereira and Saramago 2020).
Various proposals have emerged to account for
ontological plurality in environmental governance,
from ethnographic (Verran 2013; Blaser 2018; de
Almeida 2021) to conservation management planning
(Campion
et al. 2023). In the Global South, research includes
focus on power dynamics between communities and
infrastructure development (Boelens et al. 2022).
Methodologies to bring non-humans into socio-poli-
tical processes include academic (Latour 2004;
Bastian et al. 2017; van Leeuwen 2019) as well as
spiritual practices (Seed et al. 2007). And proposals
to recognise ontologies in governance include
national rights of nature (Kotzé and Villavicencio
Calzadilla 2017; O’Donnell 2020), the global concep-
tual framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (Kenter
and O’Connor 2022, p. 2531; Anderson et al. 2022),
and disciplinary innovation, such as the relational
turn in sustainability sciences (West et al. 2020).
However, innovation within established participa-
tory environmental governance remains the major
constraint to and opportunity for ontological plural-
ism for more sustainable and inclusive outcomes
(DePuy et al. 2021; Laborde and Jackson 2022). Part
of this, we suggest, is maintaining focus on the
novelty of the Ontological Turn – the move from
perspectival or conceptual diversity to the possibility
of multiple worlds as constituted in material practices
and known through pragmatic encounters (Blaser
2013; de Almeida 2021).
In this paper, we contribute to this important
frontier by engaging a novel conceptual framework
to analyze ontological inclusion and exclusion in
water governance, and we outline a management
proposal for greater ontological inclusion. The case
study is a state-led participatory process for water-
body classification in the Suaçuí state river basin, a
sub basin of the federal Doce River in Minas Gerais,
Brazil, where the Samarco Fundão Dam disaster
occurred on 5 November 2015 (Fernandes et al.
2016). We do not assert that ontological exclusion
was directly responsible for the disaster; however, this
and other water-related disasters in Brazil form part
of the motivation to experiment with new analyses
and propositions that could contribute to more inclu-
sive and sustainable management. Methods included
participatory observation, interviews and fieldwork
complement scientific, grey literature and media
review. Several river ontologies are shown to be
excluded. Practices of ontological inclusion and
exclusion are analysed. We then engage speculative
design to critically imagine how innovation might
take place within established management with a
proposed water database and associated practice
adaptations. Finally, a discussion considers the pro-
mise and risks of the approach.
2. Background: ontological pluralism in
environmental policy and management
This possibility of working pragmatically with plural
knowledges and ontologies has been explored at pro-
ject scale in Indigenous Land and Sea Management
(ILSM) in Australia (Campion et al. 2023).
Indigenous Yol u and Bi peoples, rangers and exter-
nal partners have developed collaborative land man-
agement that attempts to navigate these differences.
One example of this is the itinerant ‘Balpara Camp’,
as part of an Intercultural Monitoring & Evaluation
Project. During the camps, a practice of wulken is
undertaken, the renewal of relations between ‘people,
plants and animals, and between the living and non-
living entities, that together constitute ancestral
homelands’ (p. 9). Rather than specific and consistent
scientific monitoring, the camps mobilise existing
and ancestral place knowledge, including through
movement and storytelling. Reports summarise infor-
mation for multiple partners, including clans, ran-
gers, and funders while trying to include and
account for ontological divergences. Campion et al.
(2023) cite that, while facing many challenges, they
consider ontological plurality, or ‘pluriversality’, as
fundamental to sustainable and inclusive environ-
mental governance in the face of ongoing ecological
crises.
Pluralist approaches have been applied at project
scale to rivers in particular. Wilson et al. (2019), for
example, engage the concept of water security with
the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nations people in
2T. RICKARD ET AL.
Canada. The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in practice spiritual
relationships with water that imply the need for
respect and care of rivers as living entities to ensure
safe and adequate supply. This ontology is enacted
through distinct ways of knowing and markers of
river health that are not recognised by the Western
concept of water security. In this example, elders
were invited to elaborate on their practices for asses-
sing the safety of water to drink in a range of obser-
vational indicators, such as colour, turbidity, odour,
and taste. These were characterised by sensorial
means, such as clarity, the presence of moss on
nearby rocks, absence of smell, and how well the
water makes tea. They also consider history of use
and local knowledge, as well as scientific water quality
testing.
The existence of rivers as beings is not just a
question of perspective or discourse, rather, they are
constituted in a host of material practices, from sus-
tainable livelihoods to community celebrations and
rituals, mythology, architecture, hunting, agriculture,
and unique forms of governance (Campbell and
Gurney 2020; Ulloa 2020). This is pertinent to the
post-disaster context of the Doce River basin, where
research in this paper took place. Among those
impacted, the indigenous Krenak relate to the river
as Watú, a living ancestor and member of their peo-
ple, and part of a complex ecology of nature spirits,
the Tokón (Alves 2010; Krenak and Almeida 2009;
Krenak et al. 1997). Despite a brutal history of colo-
nization, and multiple illegal evictions from their
recognised territory over the last 100 years, the
Krenak have always been ‘called back’ to live by
Watú (Soares 1992; Mpf 2015). The 2015 Samarco
Disaster, according to some, killed Watú (Fiorott
2018). To others, he is in a coma and may one day
return (Krenak 2020b). In any case, the conflict
implies more than the categories of impact and loss,
such as financial and dislocational, typically recog-
nised by the ontology of the Western state and legal
system:
The Doce River, which we, the Krenak Nation, call
Watú — our grandfather — is a person, not a
resource, as the economists like to call him. He is
not something you can own or appropri-
ate. (A. Krenak 2020a, p. 27)
Propositions for natural entities as living beings with
legal rights have been influential on non-indigenous
movements. According to the Community
Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF 2023),
nearly 200 municipalities in the United States have
drafted rights of nature, public access, and pollution
prevention laws. And several European rivers have
been the subject of community movements, such as
River Dart charter in the United Kingdom, which
states that:
Water is a living entity that we all share and benefit
from, and the health of living water is a common
pool resource entrusted to us all. The movement of
water through its cycle of rain, rivers, seas, and
clouds is essential for the maintenance of all
life. (Bioregional Learning Centre 2019)
At national scale, rivers-as-persons laws are a further
response to recognition of indigenous sovereignty and
ontological plurality (Boyd 2017). Such laws now exist in
Colombia, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, India,
Bangladesh, and, most recently, Spain (Ewering et al.
2024). The most substantial institutional arrangement
among these is the Te Awa Tupua Act 2017, organized
between the Aotearoa New Zealand state and indigenous
Māori tribe, Whanganui Iwi (New Zealand Ministry of
Justice 2017). The act states that ‘Te Awa Tupua is an
indivisible and living whole from the mountains to the
sea, incorporating the Whanganui River and all of its
physical and metaphysical elements’ (2017, art. 13) with
‘all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal
person’ (2017, art. 14). However, in their construction,
the rivers-as-persons laws encounter tensions in trying to
translate indigenous ontologies into Western legal frame-
works. Then, in their application, their capacity to con-
tribute to inclusive and sustainable management is
heavily constrained by a lack of rights to water and
established institutional and policy contexts that drive
competing agendas (O’Donnell 2020).
Ontological pluralism has been taken up by global
frameworks for environmental governance, including
IPBES, which has adopted the Life Frames Approach.
The approach aims to recognise diverse ontologies
with four frames: ‘living from’, in which environment
is a means and resource; ‘living in’, where nature is a
home and place of personal and social histories; ‘liv-
ing with’, indicating nature as of aesthetic and intrin-
sic conservation value; and ‘living as’, a non-dualistic,
non-anthropocentric relational frame (Seb and
Kenter 2019). While drawing on ontology, this
approach is designed to be compatible with estab-
lished concepts, such as Ecosystem Services, Natures
Contributions to People and contemporary environ-
mental value approaches (Kenter and O’Connor
2022).
Shared among local initiatives and global frame-
works is an emphasis on communicable scenarios as a
pragmatic proposition, such as those based on image,
narration, and embodied interaction. Yet, while local
and global approaches are complementary, they both
require or target a further complement: transforma-
tion into established state participatory environmen-
tal governance. Each scale in this dynamic is subject
to its own constraints, as displayed in Figure 1 below.
Local methodologies and global frameworks can be
designed to integrate the possibility of multiple ontol-
ogies, but this integration may bypass the state. Or, as
in some river rights cases, parallel institutions are
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 3
created that have limited power and integration in
existing structures.
The challenge to work effectively across scales pre-
sents tensions that any pluri-ontological proposition
must encounter: broad categories are needed for com-
munication and collaboration over scales and loca-
tions, yet broad categories carry the risk of neglecting
diverse unique aspects of a given ontology, as well as
disrupting the possibility of pragmatic encounters
across ontologies. For state governance, this challenge
is magnified by sub national scales as well as the
broader governance context and history. This suggests
three design constraints for pluri-ontological propo-
sals: that i) proposals work in respect of existing
national governance contexts, i.e. proposals are suffi-
ciently recognisable by relevant stakeholders, includ-
ing policy and management actors, such that they
might appear as a feasible next step; ii) proposals retain
both broad, coordinating concepts and locally diverse
concepts; and iii) proposals facilitate (rather than dis-
place) pragmatic encounters, i.e. those centred in
diverse experiences and objects, such as site visits,
mapping, artistic expression, and expeditions.
Historical research has shown that Brazilian parti-
cipatory water governance, while advancing on prior
regimes, continues to operate in an ontologically
exclusive manner (Rickard and Ludwig 2024). To
examine this in more detail, a conceptual framework
for ontological inclusion and exclusion was developed
and applied to the case study of the Suaçuí river basin
in Brazil, where a participatory process for water-
body classification took place (T. L. Rickard and
Ludwig in press). The framework conceives of
ontologies as enacted in practices across a policy
cycle formed of: a) territory (i.e. governed space), b)
forum (i.e. deliberative chamber or participatory pro-
cess), and c) policy (i.e. a law or instrument relating
to the territory and targeted by the forum).
We demonstrated that the ontologies of river-
as-home and river-as-Watú were enacted in the
river basin but excluded from the participatory
process and policy instrument. The ontologies of
river-as-state-failure and river-as-contested were
enacted in the river basin and participatory pro-
cess but not the policy instrument. Only the
ontologies of river-as-state-responsibility and
river-as-resource-system, also enacted in the river
basin and participatory process, were translated
into the policy instrument.
In this article, we expand the conceptual framework to
inquire into the specific practices and modes (further
elaborated in the analysis section) of ontological inclusion
and exclusion that mediated river ontologies of the
Suaçuí river basin in the participatory process and
water-body-classification instrument (see Figure 2
above). We then engage this empirical basis within the
above-mentioned design constraints through a specula-
tive design to critically imagine an alternative manage-
ment proposal for a plural database (Galloway and
Catherine 2018). The discussion considers the potential
and limitations of the approach.
3. Case study
Contemporary Brazilian water governance centres
on the 1997 Water Law (Brasil 1997), which sets
Figure 1. Targets for pluri-ontological proposals, examples, and constraints (author’s elaboration).
4T. RICKARD ET AL.
out deliberative and executive bodies for water
resources at federal, state, and river basin scales.
River basins across state borders are considered
federal river basins, and basins within states are
state concerns. The policy is coherent with
Integrated Water Resources Management principles
of decentralized, integrated and participatory water
management at river basic scale, as promoted in
Agenda 21 (International Conference on Water and
the Environment 1992; UNCED 1992, p. 21), as
well as the 1988 Federal Constitution and subse-
quent state constitutions and water laws (Brasil
1988; de Minas Gerais 1989, 1999). Water users,
public authorities and civil society take part in the
deliberative organs at all scales of governance (see
Table 1 below).
Five policy instruments are laid out, to be imple-
mented at each scale of governance:
- Water-body classification – the assignment of
intended water quality class parameters to
water rivers and lakes;
- Water information systems – spatial water quality
and flow data, maps of use rights, and other data;
- Water resource plans – with current, projected
and intended water quality and flow over a 20-
year horizon along with action plans;
- Water use rights – whether for agriculture,
domestic, industrial, or human rural and urban
supply; and
- Water use charging – the selective charging for
use to fund river basin management.
In this case study, we analyse the development of the
water-body classification instrument in the Suaçuí
river basin, which took place during 2022. Under
the Brazilian 1997 Water Law (Brasil 1997) and asso-
ciated National Environmental Council (CONAMA)
Figure 2. Ontological inclusion and exclusion across the policy cycle in the Suaçuí river basin in relation to a participatory
process for water-body classification. Modes of ontological exclusion that mediate between the territory, forum, and policy are
displayed in grey boxes (author’s elaboration).
Table 1. Brazilian water governance according to the 1997 Water Law.
Scale/type Public Authority Deliberative Organ Executive Organ
Federal Ministry of Environment - MMA National Council for Water Resources -
CNRH
National Water Agency - ANA
Federal River
Doce Basin
MMA; Includes Minas Gerais & Espírito Santo
representatives
Doce Federal River Basin Committee - CBH
Doce
AgeDoce - Doce Water Management
Association
Minas Gerais
State
State Sec. of Environment & Sustainable
Development
Minas Gerais State Council for Water
Resources - CERH-MG
Minas Gerais Institute for Water
Management - IGAM
Suaçuí State
River Basin
Minas Gerais Water Management Institute -
IGAM
Suaçuí State River Basin Committee - CBH
Suaçuí
AgeDoce - Doce Water Management
Association
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 5
Resolution 357 (CONAMA 2005), this instrument
entails the assignment of water quality classes –
classes 1 to 4 and ‘Special Class’, all of which are
characterized by sets of water quality parameters –
to stretches of river and lakes. These classes are
defined by a range of typically quantitative para-
meters, such as E. coli, turbidity, and dissolved oxy-
gen demand, and they are assigned to bodies of water
according to current or intended uses, or by the
presence of legally protected areas that mandate cer-
tain classes. For example, if current uses on a given
stretch include aquaculture, such as fish farming, the
stretch must be assigned as at minimum class 2. If the
current water quality class parameters are not being
achieved, actions must be laid out to achieve them
across a 20-year planning horizon. Quality para-
meters are assessed by automated quality stations or
specialist lab-based procedures. Table 2 displays
water uses and their relevant water quality classes.
A participatory process, open to the public, was
undertaken for development of the water-body-classifi-
cation instrument in the Doce federal river basin and its
state sub basins in Minas Gerais (including Suaçuí) and
Espírito Santo during 2022 (see Figure 3 below). It was
led by the National Water Agency and Doce river basin
committee, including the Suaçuí river basin committee,
with consultancy support (Engecorps/ANA 2022). To
note, the Doce River is the site of one of the worst socio-
environmental disasters in global history, the rupture of
the Samarco Fundão dam in Mariana on 5 November
2015, which released 60 million tons of mining waste
along 600 km of river. The disaster killed 19, smothered
local towns, as well as fertile land along the river, dis-
rupted energy and water supplies, tourism, subsistence
fishing, and agriculture (Fernandes et al. 2016). The
participatory process was not directly part of the recov-
ery process, but part of longer-term state water manage-
ment, designed to ensure future sustainable water use.
The participatory process consisted of three stages:
i) a diagnostic, looking at the current scenario, or,
‘the river we have’ ii) a prognostic, ‘the river we
want’, and iii) a classification proposal, bringing
together intended water quality classes with system
capacity and resources, set out as ‘the river we can
Table 2. Water uses and classification according to CONAMA resolution 357 (CONAMA 2005) (author’s elaboration from
participatory process presentations).
6T. RICKARD ET AL.
have’. Each stage included introductory seminars,
participatory activities, and consolidation (CNRH
2008; COPAM-CERH 2017; Engecorps/ANA 2022).
At the beginning, workshops were online, becoming
hybrid as COVID-19 conditions eased. Participatory
activities were largely based around two-dimensional
digital maps, such that participants could comment
on current or intended uses for the given stretches of
water that they were familiar with.
The water-body-classification proposal produced
from the participatory process listed a table of
stretches of river with: the name of the river stretch,
whether there was a protected area, the most
demanding current and intended uses, the water
quality class required, and the water quality class
achieved to date. This was accompanied by action
plans over a 20-year horizon and recommendations
for relevant stakeholders (Engecorps/ANA 2022). The
water-body-classification proposal has been approved
by the Suaçuí and Doce river basin committees, as
well as state and federal water resource councils, the
first federal river basin approval of this policy instru-
ment (ANA 2023).
4. Materials & methodology
Primary research included 23 mostly online semi-
structured interviews during 2022 and 2023 with a
range of stakeholders. These were selected to
represent the range of institutional and participatory
process managers, users, river basin committee mem-
bers, and people from the territory who live in close
relationship with the rivers Suaçuí and Doce and that
were connected to the participatory process.
Questions for all participants were designed to elicit
assumptions or relationships with rivers and the
practices associated with them; for example: are you
familiar with a particular river or stretch of river?
Can you tell me more about your memories/feel-
ings/activities in connection with this river/stretch
of river? How do you know if the river is healthy?
Do you consider the river to be alive? Questions
about how others connect to rivers followed, as well
as any questions specific to participants´ back-
grounds. The research protocol was approved by the
Federal University of Minas Gerais ethics committee.
While the 1997 Water Law and Doce River parti-
cipatory process form the focus of this research,
characterisation of an Indigenous ontology forms a
substantial element. The first author, who led on the
research and conceptual approach, is British and flu-
ent in Portuguese, having lived in Brazil for some
years. The second and third authors are German
and Brazilian, respectively. Given the author’s sub-
stantial distance from the Krenak, our connections to
historic and present-day colonisation practices, and
the associated risks of imposing biases, three steps
were undertaken: i) inclusion and primacy of Krenak-
Figure 3. The federal doce river basin and state sub basins, including suaçuí in yellow.
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 7
authored materials (Alves 2010; Krenak et al. 1997;
Krenak and Almeida 2009; Krenak 2020a, 2020c);
inclusion of academic, media, and legal documents
in collaboration with and support of the Krenak (de
Oliveira 2015; Julia Mello Neiva 2016; Urquiza and de
Oliveira Rocha 2019; MPF 2015; Caldeira and Amaral
2020; Krenak 2020b; Paraíso 2021) and iii) validation
of the characterisation of the river-as-Watú ontology
with two members of the Krenak Indigenous com-
munity, selected for their experience with researchers,
state agencies, and public engagement. COVID-19
limited the possibility for further in-person contact.
We make no claim to represent the Krenak, or any
other community mentioned, in fact, in any political
forums or processes.
Participatory observation took place during the
workshops in the participatory process, both
online and hybrid, and visits took place to the
cities of Resplendor, an important urban centre
sited near the Krenak indigenous territory, and
Governador Valadares, the largest regional urban
centre, where hybrid participatory process events
took place. Both towns sit within the Suaçuí river
basin and alongside the Doce River. Water poli-
cies, norms, and resolutions from across the scales
of formal water governance were analysed, along
with associated documents and media. Beyond the
Krenak, evidence of river ontologies within the
Suaçuí river basin included academic and artistic
works (e.g. Univale GV 2020; Espíndola 2021;
Ferreira 2022). The aim was not to be exhaustive
in characterising river ontologies but to document
sufficient diversity to test the hypothesis of onto-
logical exclusion and inquire into modes of inclu-
sion and exclusion.
Ontologies were considered by assigning a character-
istic assumption to coherent clusters of practices (Mol
1999; Gad et al. 2015). In line with practice-based
Interpretative Policy Analysis, we broadly conceive of
practices as ‘An ensemble of doings, sayings and things
in a specific field of activity’ (B. Arts et al. 2014, p. 3).
Fieldwork notes, participatory process and interview
transcripts, policies, documents, and media were coded
for practices and the ontologies they enact across the
policy cycle in Atlas.ti (‘ATLAS.Ti Scientific Software
Development GmbH’ 2022). The practices and ontolo-
gies developed from initial research according to a ‘direc-
ted content analysis’ (Hsieh and Shannon 2005) – this
involves choosing some initial concepts to guide coding
based on background reading but allowing for concepts
to evolve and develop during the process to reflect the
data. For example, initial codes included ‘river-as-envir-
onmental-system’, enacted in practices of mapping and
modelling, and ‘river-as-economic resource’, including
practices of extraction and mining; yet it became appar-
ent that these practices could be clustered around a
characteristic assumption of the ‘river-as-resource-
system’, of distinct, quantifiable elements, economic,
environmental, and social (see T. L. Rickard and
Ludwig in press for more on the approach).
For this paper, the same data set was recoded, this
time filtering for ontologies present in only one or
two policy cycle elements to consider which practices
contributed to ontological inclusion and exclusion.
These practices were further grouped into modes of
ontological exclusion based on similarity and proxi-
mity within policy cycle elements. For example, med-
iating inclusion between the forum and policy, water
policies discursively enacted water as a resource and
mandated that water quality evaluation should be by
scientific and state-sanctioned methods. These prac-
tices constrained the translation of river ontologies
that include non-resource assumptions of rivers and
sensorial knowledge of quality into the water-body-
classification proposal; the practices were grouped
and characterised as the mode of ontological exclu-
sion: ‘Policy Design’.
Finally, we consider a proposal for pluri-ontologi-
cal governance by employing a mode of speculative
design, meant to provide ‘a critique of the prevailing
situation through designs that embody alternative
social, cultural, technical or economic values’
(Dunne and Raby 2001, p. 58). This is by its nature
a process that is difficult to consider explicitly,
though we provide reasoning for choices in section
6 below. Beginning from the analysis of practices and
modes of ontological exclusion, this design worked
within the above-mentioned constraints of i) famil-
iarity and feasibility within the governance context,
ii) broad coordinating concepts and locally diverse
concepts, and iii) facilitation of pragmatic encounters.
By offering a concrete suggestion that we take as both
imaginative and grounded in the empirical context,
we invite reflection and critique regarding the propo-
sition itself as well as this mode of inquiry (Galloway
and Catherine 2018).
5. Analysis
5.1. River basin ontologies
River-as-Watú refers to Watú, the living ancestor and
member of the Krenak indigenous people, who lives
in Suaçuí river basin in their indigenous territory
near the town of Resplendor (Alves 2010; Krenak et
al. 1997; Krenak and Almeida 2009; MPF 2015). To
the Krenak, the Doce River is a sentient being, part of
a broader spiritual ecology including the forests,
landscape and animals. Discussing an interview with
Shirley Krenak, Caldeira (2020, 60) states that ‘Watu
is more than water, he is life, he is human. Within
him, there are many other animal and spiritual lives
with which the Krenak maintain an ancestral connec-
tion’. This ontology is enacted in rituals, such as
8T. RICKARD ET AL.
those of seasonal change, birth and coming of age,
music and dreams, through which Watú speaks to
and guides the Krenak, as well as hunting, agricul-
tural, and land management practices (Fiorott 2018;
Caldeira and Amaral 2020; Paraíso 2021).
River-as-home – for both ‘Ribeirinhos’, those who
live in direct relationship to the river, and those in the
cities who live nearby – the river forms the centre of
festivities, local history and myths, transport and
small-scale economies, such as artisanal fishing, family
agriculture, irrigation and transport (Espíndola 2021;
Ferreira 2022). Comparable though distinct from the
indigenous ontology of the river as a sentient being,
some residents of the basin refer to the river as ‘like a
mother’ for its role in family life with sustenance,
income, and play (Ferreira 2022, p. 123). During field-
work, residents shared memories of learning to swim
in the river as children and of family gatherings there,
whether for particular events or just as the place people
go in their leisure time to socialize and relax (Univale
GV 2020).
River-as-contested refers to the basin as a space of
contested control over land and resources, with
diverse social groups in constantly evolving power
relationships (López et al. 2021). Though not expli-
citly facilitated, during the participatory process
workshops, stories were told of communities’ histor-
ical struggles, such as those of agrarian reform settle-
ments and informal subsistence economies, including
fishing. The environmental damage and inequalities
created by large industries, such as mining and euca-
lyptus plantations, were discussed, as well as resis-
tance through legal and political pressure.
Overlapping yet distinct, river-as-state-failure
refers to the river basin as a failed state management
project. Practices included unregistered water users,
uncontrolled waste dumping, and water quality mon-
itoring infrastructure that could not cope with peri-
odic industrial pollution. Basin residents both within
and outside the participatory process expressed that
they had smelt chemicals in the water and seen fishes
dying, but that complaints to enforcement, such as
the Minas Gerais state water agency and public pro-
secutor, were of no effect. Decades of unplanned
urban development was highlighted as a major pollu-
tant, as well as excessive agricultural use of pesticides.
The environmental licensing process, too, was con-
sidered slow, costly, and unmonitored.
River-as-resource-system expresses the river as
part of a quantified and modelled system of interre-
lated elements. There were socio-economic systems,
such as measures of GDP, transport occupation, and
migration. There were environmental systems, such
as geology, climate, soil type, and vegetation cover.
And there were data sets on various quantified water
quality and flow parameters over time, as well as
‘users’ according to their policy-defined uses. These
data sets were combined into differing scenarios over
varying planning horizons for workshop participants
to rely on in decision-making about which manage-
ment interventions to prioritize. Secondary data from
sources such as the Brazilian Institute of Geography
and Statistics were rendered into two-dimensional
maps to cover ‘socio-economic’ aspects of the river
basin, such as Gross Domestic Product per munici-
pality (Engecorps/ANA 2022, sec. 5.1.4).
Finally, the river-as-state-responsibility ontology
asserts that sustainable water management is a state
duty and capacity. This is enacted through the web of
constitutions, laws, institutions and various norms
and regulations that render the state the guardian of
the waters, including the participatory deliberative
forums, such as the river basin committees. The
water-body-classification document performs a com-
petent state, with the assumption of present and
future policy enforcement. In particular, the models
embedded the assumption that federal sanitation law
14,026/2020 would be enacted, a law that demands
90% of sanitary waste be treated by 2033 (Brasil
2020).
The river ontologies characterised are listed along
with their associated cluster of practices in Table 5
below.
5.2. Practices and modes of ontological inclusion
and exclusion
The river ontologies of river-as-Watú and river-as-home
were present in the river basin but excluded from the
participatory process and water-body-classification pro-
posal. The river ontologies of river-as-contested and
river-as-state-failure were enacted in the process but
were excluded from the classification proposal. Of all
the river ontologies, only the river-as-resource system
and river-as-state-responsibility ontologies are enacted
in the river basin, participatory process, and water-
body-classification proposal (see Figure 2 above).
Modes of ontological exclusion between the Suaçuí
river basin and the participatory process were parti-
cipation formats, i.e. how, when and where participa-
tion was undertaken, and policy interpretation, where
choices were made by participatory process managers
around their obligations. The river ontologies enacted
in the river basin and participatory process were
excluded from the water-body-classification proposal
by the modes of policy design–i.e. policy concepts,
directives, and institutional structuring – and techni-
cal displacement, which we define as the substitution
of deliberation with technological and technical pro-
cedures, such as mapping and modelling. These
modes and practices of ontological exclusion are
detailed more fully along with the relevant institu-
tions and policies in Table 3 below.
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 9
5.2.1. Modes of exclusion from territory to forum
The ontologies of river-as-Watú and river-as-home
can be characterized as relational ontologies that, in
different ways, enact the river, human, and more-
than-human community as co constituted through
evolving relationships (West et al. 2020; Kenter and
O’Connor 2022). Taking the practices of festivities
and ritual as an example, the way policy was inter-
preted as predefining all possible ‘uses’ of water
meant that these activities were not recognised, even
as they might require established water quality stan-
dards. While some sensory modes of water quality
evaluation that these relational ontologies engage are
listed in the relevant resolution (CONAMA 2005),
such as distinct smells or visual detected pollution,
these were not chosen for consideration in the parti-
cipatory process. Two-dimensional, quantitative digi-
tal maps of the territory were used extensively and
according to guidance for the proposal development
(CNRH 2008; COPAM-CERH 2017); however, this
meant that alternative forms of mapping and docu-
mentation that might be more appropriate to rela-
tional and other river ontologies were ignored (e.g.
Laschefski 2018; Espíndola 2021).
Added to these conservative policy interpretations,
the participation format was online and hybrid in fixed
urban locations, constraining recognition of practices
such as festivities and rituals. Where participation
dynamics took place, these remained individualized
with pre-structured paper or online submission pro-
cesses that requested information formatted in respect
of the water information system, obstructing the pos-
sibility for as yet unrecognized practices and concepts
to be engaged. The central participatory dynamic was
based on digital maps, moving along stretches of water
and asking participants which water uses they knew of
or expected (Engecorps/ANA 2022, chap. 4). Yet, at
several points, river basin residents struggled to iden-
tify the places and place names they knew, suggesting
that the format presented a barrier to some participant
contributions.
5.2.2. Modes of exclusion from forum to policy
Beyond interpretation of the participatory process
remit, policy design was specific on some key points.
The 1997 Water Law and related policies all deter-
mine that water is a ‘resource’, among other natural
resources, to be managed according to competing
‘uses’ or ‘demands’ (Brasil 1997). Policy definitions
then extend to the list of defined uses, the classes and
class parameters, and the state and science-based
means of evaluating parameters (CONAMA 2005).
While offering standardisation across scales and
timelines, these top-down definitions restrain the
possibility of recognising local divergences in concep-
tualisation of activities, water quality and means of
evaluation, sensory or otherwise. Policy design
further delimits the stages and limits to participation,
rendering the multi stakeholder process one of data
input to a water-body-classification proposal rather
than deliberation on its categories or implementation
(CNRH 2008; COPAM-CERH 2017).
The technical definitions of water quality and
expectation of modelling past and future water qual-
ity and flow are entangled with the technological
monitoring infrastructure, such as automated water
quality stations. This monitoring feeds sets of data-
bases linked to models that also draw on secondary
data to produce quantified scenarios for water quality
and flow in respect of sociodemographic, climatic
and other changes. It makes sense to make predic-
tions for planning purposes; yet, many factors that
participants considered important to current and
future scenarios were displaced by the emphasis on
quantifiable data. For example, practices of the river-
as-contested ontology were narrated and discussed
during the participatory process – such as protest
and campaigns against the mining companies, and
histories of displacement – that could have significant
if difficult to quantify impacts on water quality and
flow through secondary effects on policy design,
infrastructures and disaster risk, and enforcement
(Rothman and Oliver 2006; Labonne 2016).
Table 3. Modes and practices of ontological exclusion.
Modes of exclusion:
territory to forum Practices
Modes of exclusion:
forum to policy Practices
Policy Interpretation
Responsible: Engecorps/
ANA/IGAM/CBH Doce &
Suaçuí
Limitation to pre-defined uses Policy Design
Policies: Federal & state constitutions, water laws,
instruments and instrument implementation
resolutions, Municipal organic laws and projects
Definition of water and
environment as
resources
No deliberation of selected
class parameters or sensory
modes of evaluation
Pre-defined uses and
classes
Quantitative socioeconomic
maps
Participation mandated
for proposal but not
implementation plan
Participation Formats
Responsible: Engecorps/
ANA/IGAM/CBH Doce &
Suaçuí
Online and hybrid format State & science-oriented
quality evaluation
Individualized information-
oriented dynamics
Technical Displacement Institutions: CERH-MG & IGAM
CBH-Doce & Suaçuí AGEDOCE Municipalities
Technological
monitoring
infrastructure
Digital and map-based
capture
Centring of databases
and modelling
10 T. RICKARD ET AL.
Amidst the projections, however, modelling the
likely implementation of state policy based on histor-
ical performance was not considered. Participatory
dynamics included evaluation of marginal invest-
ments based on scenarios that assumed Law 14,026/
2020 on near universal sanitation by 2033, which
would require unprecedented investment (Brasil
2020). Participants were asked to weigh up investing
in additional phosphorus treatment technology for
treatment stations that in some cases did not exist
yet, and might arguably not exist within the asserted
timeframe (Engecorps/ANA 2022, chap. 7). As such,
the river-as-state-failure practices of unregistered
users, poor enforcement, and unplanned develop-
ment were not recognised in the participatory process
or proposal, even as they may have important rela-
tionships to planning and implementation strategies.
6. A speculative pluri-ontological proposal
Granted the above target and constraints for a pluri-
ontological proposal, we engage here in speculative
design (Galloway and Catherine 2018), putting for-
ward an imagined set of changes to policies and
participation that could better engage ontological
plurality. In the background section, we laid out
three design constraints for pluri-ontological propo-
sals that they: i) work in respect of existing national
governance contexts, i.e. are sufficiently recognisable
by relevant stakeholders, including policy and man-
agement actors, such that they might appear as a
feasible next step; ii) retain both broad, coordinating
concepts and locally diverse concepts; and iii) facil-
itate pragmatic encounters, i.e. those centred on
diverse experiences and objects, such as site visits,
mapping, artistic expression, and expeditions.
Together with the contextual modes of ontological
inclusion and exclusion, these principles form the
basis for speculative design, which resulted in a pro-
posal for a plural database (see Figure 4 below).
Granted the established centrality of data collec-
tion, mapping, and modelling of the river basin, our
proposal seeks to add to – rather than replace or
radically reform – this system, so as to respect the
first constraint of familiarity and feasibility. The ter-
ritorial delimitations of river basins and standardisa-
tion of flow and quality parameters serve important
functions for water management. In their current
form, and as mandated in an ontologically exclusive
policy design, they close down the possibilities for
recognising diverse river ontologies. However, exter-
nal academic categories are not in themselves incom-
patible with additional local categories. Thus, we
envisage a single database of waterways as potentially
grounding plurality by opening up to further charac-
terizations of stretches. To integrate our proposal,
open-access database outputs require adaptation gen-
erating far more accessible interfaces, such that resi-
dents are facilitated to identify their location easily on
the maps, as well as input a variety of data types, from
textual observations to pictures, stories or commu-
nity-based monitoring data. A description of our
imagined database definitions is laid in Table 4
below.
As well as multiplying concepts, academic and
technical concepts can be broadened or loosened
(Boelens and Vos 2012). Here, the concept of ‘water
quality’ is maintained to include qualitative descrip-
tions, such as spiritual health and safe communal
access, alongside the established quantitative
Figure 4. Modes of ontological inclusion and exclusion, and
design constraints as a context for speculative design
(author’s elaboration).
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 11
measures (Wilson et al. 2019) – this respects our
constraint to be coordinating and diverse. And the
question of how to know as well as measure the
quality of water and river health is similarly expanded
to counteract the documented tendency toward tech-
nical displacement. Evaluation, as such, includes sen-
sory modes of evaluation, more-than-human-
dialogue, community-based monitoring, and partici-
patory mapping, thus integrating the possibility of
diverse established communal practices that engage
pragmatic encounters. With the stretches now
defined according to river ontologies, practices, qual-
ity, and means of evaluating quality, this territorial
diversity would need to be considered in terms of
management implications and actions that can be
periodically reviewed and assessed, such as coordina-
tion with municipal environmental secretaries and
environmental licensing processes. In Table 5 below,
we lay out a familiar but distinct alternative to the
tables contained in the water-body-classification
document analysed above.
Just as policy design and technical displacement
are addressed, the remit and formats for participation
require attention in relation to the framework and
databases. Assuming policy design explicitly provides
for recognising further local concepts, inputs could
include further characterisations, from natural capital
to river-as-being. To address the design constraint of
facilitating pragmatic encounters, the set of methods
for producing such inputs could expand in range,
such as through participatory deliberation and
more-than-human dialogue. The aim is two-fold: to
render territorial diversity visible to higher level water
managers for better management choices, and to offer
representation that makes sense to residents of the
river basin such that technologies become a means of
enhancing river relationships and associated social
capital.
7. Discussion
Established participatory environmental governance
remains a critical constraint and opportunity to
explore ontological plurality for more sustainable
and inclusive management (Victoria State
Government 2021; Laborde and Jackson 2022;
Campion et al. 2023). Yet, as with innovative national
laws and conservation projects, the design, imple-
mentation, and outcomes of ontologically inclusive
governance remain to be developed and evaluated.
A connecting theme to our reflections here regards
the balance between consistency and plurality in sev-
eral aspects of pluri-ontological environmental gov-
ernance: characterising and categorising ontologies,
models and stories of socio-environmental change,
and the role of technologies in supporting plurality.
We follow with consideration of limitations.
Global frameworks have created broad categories
of ontologies. The distinction between those ontolo-
gies included and excluded in our example might be
characterized as relational vs. non-relational (Ingold
2000; West et al. 2020). We might also categorise the
ontology of river-as-Watú as ‘living as nature’, and
river-as-home as ‘living in nature’, according to the
Life Frames Approach (Kenter and O’Connor 2022).
These categories or frames are useful as heuristic
means of communicating and working with ontolo-
gical plurality – especially to those who may be
unfamiliar with such notions – and they embrace
the possibilities of overlap and complementarity (L.
M. Pereira et al. 2020). However, any broad catego-
rization of ontologies must remain open to diverse
Table 4. Speculative pluri-ontological database structure.
Scale & input
type Methodologies
Parameter
Examples Outputs Purposes
Federal & State
River Basins;
Quantitative
Automated technological and specialist
technical procedures
DBO
Turbidity
E.coli
Nitrates &
Phosphorous
Open-access spatial and historical
quantitative database
Enforcement,
planning, policy
design and
evaluation
Municipal &
stretch
specific;
Quantitative
Automated technological and specialist
technical procedures; community-based
monitoring; research partnerships
pH
Dissolved
Oxygen
E. Coli
Temperature
Dissolved Solids;
Ecosystem
Services
Open-access spatial and historical
quantitative database
Enforcement,
planning, policy
design and
evaluation;
Public contribution
and access to
locally relevant
data;
Local project
planning
Municipal &
stretch
specific;
Qualitative
Deliberative processes; more than human
participatory research;
community-specific practices
Socio
environmental
asset listing;
River ontology
characterization;
Values
characterization
Open-access spatial and multi modal
qualitative database; diverse
stretch- scale river characterizations
Recognition
ontological,
epistemological
and social diversity;
improved river
relationships;
enhanced social
capital
12 T. RICKARD ET AL.
characterisations of ontologies that respect differ-
ences beyond said categories (Laborde and Jackson
2022). What we hope to offer – in concert with
literature on ontology (e.g. Mol 1999; Woolgar and
Lezaun 2013) – is a focus on practices as a useful
means of characterization. On the one hand, this
creates tangible communication that can support
pragmatic encounters, and, on the other, it attempts
to subvert the risk of an often implicit ‘reasonable
politics’ – the relegation of perspectives, values, or
culture as secondary to the ‘reality’ of the environ-
ment as a system and resource (Blaser 2016).
There is a tension here between the desire for
consistent global and national models of environ-
mental change and recognising diverse ontologies.
The data-driven model in our example – an abun-
dance of consistent water quality data over decades in
the Doce and Suaçuí river basins – has yet to result in
consistent class 2 parameters. At the same time, many
can tell unique stories of rivers that drive community
associations, indigenous conservation, and artistic
education projects. The stories and their influence
on the rivers are difficult to see in the current water
management approach, and this is likely because it
prioritises comparability over completeness in
descriptions. Yet, if management could let go of the
need to build just one coherent picture, we might
move from closely documenting disasters to narrating
many intersecting stories of change. This would not
mean abandoning multi scalar standards and com-
parison – which are surely still fundamental to sup-
porting sustainable and inclusive management–, but
setting them alongside and in support of various
collective socio-environmental concerns (Wilson et
al. 2019; Linton and Krueger 2020; Laborde and
Jackson 2022). A pluri-ontological approach means
taking stories of change seriously as constitutive of
the river basin.
The centrality of technologies is another important
aspect constraining the possibility of recognising
diverse stories and models of socio-environmental
change. Interestingly, in a nearby counter example,
water-body classification was applied to the
Piracicaba state basin, also within the Doce River,
back in 1994. The then state-sanctioned methodology
included walking many of the rivers to inquire as to
the current and intended uses of the river (FEAM
1996). In our case, the databases rendered
Table 5. A speculative pluri-ontological water-body-classification table.
Stretch of River
Recognised River
Ontology Characterization Associated practices
Definitions of
quality
Modes of
evaluation
Management
implications
Rio Doce at
Governador
Valadares
River-as-home The river is a place
of community,
memory,
emotional and
spiritual well-
being, a
‘mother’. a
home and part
of daily life
Celebration and
festivals,
recreation, sensory
and artistic
engagement,
subsistence fishing
and irrigation,
communal flood
response and
waste collection
Presence of clean,
safe, open-access
communal
spaces for
swimming and
fishing, regular
festivities, social
networks around
river issues,
Participatory
mapping,
sensory
observations
and reporting,
sociological
research,
community-
based &
scientific
monitoring
Public agency and
municipal
support,
pollution and
dumping
controls,
environmental
licencing limits,
waste collection
infrastructure
Stretches in and
bordering
Krenak
Territory
River-as-Watú Watú is a living
ancestor and
member of the
Krenak people, a
being of many
beings, one of
many sentient
nature spirits
Ritual and
celebration, music
and songs,
dreaming, hunting,
fishing,
conservation and
restoration projects
Spiritual well-being,
ecological
diversity, clean
and safe space
for hunting and
fishing
Dream, music and
ritual more-
than-human
dialogue,
community-led
ecological
research,
community-
based &
scientific
monitoring
Public agency and
municipal
support,
pollution and
dumping
controls,
environmental
licencing limits,
institutional
support for more-
than-human
inclusion
Rio Suaçuí at
Resplendor
River-as-state-
responsibility
River is governed,
monitored,
predicted and
controlled
through state
policies and
institutions,
including
participation
management
Legal assertion of
multiscale
governance
system, definitions
of quality
parameters and
classes,
institutional design
Quantitative water-
quality
parameters,
biodiversity
measures,
Ecosystem
Service
provisioning
Automated
monitoring,
biological and
sociological
research
Extending
databases,
coordinated
research
partnerships for
adaptive
management,
enforcement
powers
Rio Eme at
Cuparaque
River-as-resource-
system
River as part of a
quantifiable
environmental
resource system
including major
sectors, ‘users’
and ‘demands’
Databases, maps,
models and
projections of
water stretches
and socioeconomic
change
Socioeconomic
development
compatible with
future multi
sector demands
Socio
environmental
and economic
modelling and
projections
Adaptations to
development
policies, industry
collaboration on
simpler licensing
and enforcement
ECOSYSTEMS AND PEOPLE 13
participatory dynamics another form of data collec-
tion, displacing the possibility of deliberation and
pragmatic encounters. But this is not a suggestion
to do the opposite and displace databases with trips
to the river. In fact, we can conceive of participants as
part of a monitoring system in an alternative manner:
as a more socially and ontologically inclusive human-
technological network. Map representations can
indeed provide grounds for pragmatic encounters
between divergent ontologies (de Almeida 2013), as
long as processes that involve them recognize that
differences extend beyond these representations.
There are also examples of engaging technologies
with natural language to support citizen interaction
with water information technologies (Koen et al.
2019). This implies recognition not only of local
parameters but local ways of knowing, and the facil-
itation of participant input in ways that make sense to
them. In turn, this means attention to accessible out-
puts in terms of participant concepts and concerns.
Humans, and even non-humans, and the technolo-
gies involved can thus enter a more equitable
relationship.
We now consider limitations regarding the
national context, the challenges of conflict and the
role of state managers. One of the great omissions
(and possibilities for reform) of the 1997 Water Law
is arguably the lack of integration of the municipal
scale into water management. Clarity in roles and
relationships for municipalities – the governance
scale responsible for waste treatment – is desperately
needed (Matos and Dias 2023). This is why we
included it in our pluri-ontological database proposal.
Yet, the scale of opening to ontological inclusion is
not restrained to the sub municipal possibility of
pragmatic encounters. To recall, the federal laws
were created by a democratic process, and institu-
tions issuing norms and resolutions include represen-
tatives of civil society. This is where questions of
social and epistemic inclusion connect to ontology,
setting out a further motivation to diversify and sup-
port representatives across the participatory system
(Elstub et al. 2016). There is an unfortunate and
sometimes exploited tendency for Brazilian participa-
tory water governance forums to require substantial
technical knowledge (Taddei 2011; Rebecca and Keck
2013; Libanio 2017). This is exacerbated by the imbal-
ance between public authority and large user repre-
sentatives, who often have more time and resources
to take part (Martins 2015; Matos et al. 2022). As
such, the well-known participation challenges of
power differences, complex bureaucracies, and parti-
cipatory forum impacts remain (Chilvers and
Matthew 2016; Braun and Könninger 2018).
In the same way that databases and modelling
should not displace deliberation, neither should any
policy proposal for ontological inclusion. Rather than
resolve conflict, then, the approach we suggest here
can only be an accessible starting point for delibera-
tion that does not destructively negate, translate, or
diminish differences prior to participatory processes
(Blaser 2013; Stengers 2018). The validity of our
findings cannot be asserted without a more partici-
patory approach (e.g. Laborde and Jackson 2022), and
the concepts of design could be developed with
respect to more ontologically oriented approaches
(Escobar 2018). In our example, undisputed or non-
conflictual assignments of river ontologies would still
require integration into the range of connected poli-
cies, programs, and projects. If there was conflict over
assignment, as we might expect considering the
example of the 2015 Samarco Disaster and Aimorés
hydroelectric dam downstream from the Krenak
Indigenous Territory (GESTA 2013), the implication
of ontological inclusion is that relevant planning fac-
tors are formally expanded to those within diverse
river ontologies, such as spiritual-ecological well-
being (De la Cadena 2010; MPF 2015). The expansion
of formal recognition does not guarantee justice,
however. No conceptual framework, method or set
of indicators alone can address this. Reflecting on his
experiences of community governance at a confer-
ence, one member of the Krenak expressed his hope
that one day the river basin committee could move
from being what he termed ‘political’ to ‘social’ – that
instead of vested interests working for themselves, the
shared interest in the health of the river might pre-
vail. Ontologies of the environment can be tied to an
ontology of participatory governance, and, in fact,
this is part of what we propose.
Significantly, many state managers and commit-
tee members recognise diversity in their personal
relationships with rivers, and that river practices
extended beyond those listed in the water-body-
classification instrument. They were emphatic in
their normative commitments to inclusion and par-
ticipation and demonstrated keen listening and
patience with participants who contributed outside
the proposed facilitation dynamics. Within the con-
fines of the detailed and directive norms and reso-
lutions relating to the water-body-classification
instrument, the prospect of translating such contri-
butions into policy proposition was limited.
However, in other moments, the political role of
high-level state managers was apparent. At a public
conference of the Doce River Basin Committee, for
example, amidst vigorous debates, there was broad
consensus on the success of the federal and state
water institutions in resisting a recent water mar-
ketization agenda that would have diminished com-
mittees’ capacities and powers (Costa 2022;
Governador 2022): that the state, users and civil
society should collectively govern the water remains
sacrosanct.
14 T. RICKARD ET AL.
Conclusion
Ontological approaches represent an important fron-
tier in the search for more inclusive and sustainable
environmental governance and management.
Ontological pluralism has been engaged in rivers-as-
persons laws and collaborative conservation projects
and shows promise. Such experimentation must be
extended to established participatory governance
such that this promise might be further explored
and assessed.
In this article, conceiving of ontologies as enacted
in practices, we showed ontological inclusion and
exclusion in a participatory process for water man-
agement in the Suaçuí river basin. We then exam-
ined the modes of ontological inclusion and
exclusion: policy interpretation and participation
formats constrained the inclusion of the ontologies
of river-as-home and river-as-Watú of the river
basin from being enacted in the participatory pro-
cess; policy design and technical displacement con-
strained the inclusion of the ontologies of river-
state-failure and river-as-contested in the participa-
tory process from being enacted in the water-body-
classification proposal. The ontologies of river-as-
state-responsibility and river-as-resource-system
remained dominant.
Engaging speculative design within the constraints
of being familiar and feasible, coordinating and
diverse, and pragmatic, we imagined a plural database
that might engage both top-down and bottom-up
concepts in water quality, evaluation, and manage-
ment implications. This provided for a discussion
reflecting on the notions of extending global para-
meters with local ones, engaging comparable and
non-comparable models and stories of change, sup-
porting deliberation with technologies, and recognis-
ing contextual limitations of the approach.
Ethics approval
Ethical approval for the research protocols used was
granted by the Research Ethics Committee (Comité de
Ética em Pesquisa) of the Federal University of Minas
Gerais, Brazil – Av. Presidente Antonio Carlos, 6627 2º.
Andar Sala 2005 Campus Pampulha. CEP 31.270–901.
Tel. +55 31 3409–4592. Email coep@prpq.ufmg.br.
The project is named ‘UM RIO ENTRE MUNDOS:
EXAMINANDO E INOVANDO A GOVERNANÇA
AMBIENTAL PARTICIPATIVA’, reference no.
69534423.4.0000.5149, and the principal researcher is
listed as Raoni Rajão.
Consent for interviews was obtained using a writ-
ten consent form detailing the researchers and insti-
tutions involved, as well as participant rights under
Brazilian laws, and affirmed during recordings, as
approved by the ethics committee.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
The work was supported by the Coordenação de
Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [001]; the
European Research Council, and the Nederlandse Organisatie
voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [VI.Vidi.195.026].
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