'Locating the 'Wild' in Wild Swimming: An exploration of multispecies bodies of water, their relations and their potential for alternative environment

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It is said that we only have the next decade to radically transform our relationship to nature in orderto prevent a climate crisis on a planetary scale (IPCC 2019). Whilst much is often made of the idea thatnations need to orientate societal practices towards climate mitigation, the dominant orthodoxyshaping climate policy frameworks is the belief that a climate solution can be found through a plannedalignment of state and capital interests. In December 2019, at the 25th UN Climate Change Conference(COP 25), world leaders, however, witnessed condemnation of the marketisation of solutions andclimate capitalism. Due to the accompanying erasure of human rights legislation, specificallythreatening indigenous groups in statute drafts, an unprecedented set of indigenous protestsoccurred, leading to the eviction of indigenous activists and NGOs. The message was clear: climatecapitalism is eclipsing indigenous voice. In the wake of COP 25, indigenous leaders have condemnedthe UN process as failing to address the urgency of the climate crisis, and as 'taking up space with falsesolutions'.This study explores the making and politics of knowledge, which is a key concern in Science andTechnology Studies (STS), and my investigation speaks directly to indigenous knowledge productionby exploring the 'Indigenous Paradigm'. In this research, the Indigenous Paradigm refers to indigenouspractices which reduce climate vulnerabilities whilst enabling cultures to flourish, and simultaneouslyarticulating a denunciation of capitalist solutions to climate change. My research will explore howthese practices might be seen as 'prefigurative', that is, representing a fundamental transformation in