INVESTIGATING A ROLE FOR THE ARTS IN SUPPORTING RELATIONS OF CARE IN RAJASTHAN'S TRADITIONAL WATER INFRASTRUCTURES

该研究网络将探索以社区为基础的艺术如何有助于理解和改善生活在缺水条件下的人的福利。我们期待该网络将在英国和印度之间的水、基础设施、性别和社会关系、关怀、可持续发展和包容性社区等主题上产生深远的多学科合作。对于这个奠基网络项目，我们的工作将集中在与印度拉贾斯坦邦传统水利基础设施的开发和维护相关的护理实践上。拉贾斯坦邦是印度最干旱的邦，在使用简单的雨水收集和保护实践来管理水资源短缺方面有着悠久的历史。然而，近几十年来，这些技术已被淘汰，取而代之的是现代的集中式取水和分配流程，不幸的是，这些流程在很大程度上无法满足拉贾斯坦邦农村地区人民的需求。因此，印度的许多水专家现在都在倡导回归规模较小、分散和传统的雨水收集，以解决水资源短缺的问题。我们的项目将仔细研究人们对传统雨水收集做法重新产生的兴趣，以及这些基础设施在当地社会关系和提供可持续水安全方面所发挥的作用。我们的项目将把水和发展专家、政府利益攸关方、供水提供者和管理者、社会参与和社区艺术家以及性别问题专家聚集在一起，探索拉贾斯坦邦传统的节水做法和基础设施。社会参与的艺术实践是我们方法的核心。在拉贾斯坦邦收获的知识和经验植根于当地的村庄文化。通过与擅长创造性促进和调查过程的印度艺术家合作，我们不仅希望合作探索传统做法，还将以一种可接触的形式向国家和国际政策界和利益相关者传播这些知识和经验。我们的“关怀”方法借鉴了AHRC资助的项目“走向水族公民”(AHRC-AHRC)(2014-2017)的相关经验，PI博士通过该项目学习了城市水利基础设施维护和修复的实践。在琼·特隆托之后，我们理解关怀是“我们为维护、延续和修复我们的世界所做的一切，以便我们能够尽可能地生活在其中。那个世界包括我们的身体、我们自己和我们的环境，所有这些我们都试图交织在一个复杂的、维持生命的网络中”(1993,103)。在拉贾斯坦邦传统的水利基础设施的背景下，这意味着要看看关怀既是一种倾向，也是一种渗透到社会关系中的做法(通常不被承认或不被承认)。它还明确承认非人类是护理组合中的关键代理。我们的方案包括三个讲习班，通过这些讲习班，我们将促进跨学科和国际合作。前两次会议将在拉贾斯坦邦举行，我们将在那里讨论和探索拉贾斯坦邦缺水和水基础设施的状况。这将包括与印度的艺术从业者以及传统的水利基础设施用户和管理员合作。第三个研讨会将在英国布里斯托尔举行，重点是扩大创意、学术和政策方面的参与，引入基础设施护理的概念，并进一步推进我们的研究议程。这将包括一次小型会议，以及前两个讲习班和印度艺术委员会的材料和创意成果展览。

This research network will explore how community-based arts can contribute to understandings and improvements in the welfare of those living in conditions of water scarcity. We expect the network to result in far-reaching multi-disciplinary collaboration on the themes of water, infrastructure, gender and social relations, care, sustainability, and inclusive communities between the UK and India. For this foundation-setting network project, our work will centre on the care practices associated with the development and maintenance of traditional water infrastructures in Rajasthan, India.Rajasthan is the driest state in India and has a long history of using simple rainwater harvesting and conservation practices to manage water scarcity. However, in recent decades these techniques have fallen out of use in favour of modern, centralised water extraction and distribution processes which have, unfortunately, largely failed to meet the needs of people in rural Rajasthan. As a consequence, many water experts in India are now advocating a return to smaller, decentralised and traditional rainwater harvesting to address water scarcity. Our project will take a careful look at the renewal of interest in traditional rainwater harvesting practices and the role these infrastructures play in both local social relations and the delivery of sustainable water security. Our project will draw together water and development specialists, government stakeholders, water providers and managers, socially engaged and community-based artists and gender experts in the exploration of traditional water conservation practices and infrastructures in Rajasthan. Socially engaged arts practice is at the heart of our approach. Knowledge and experience of harvesting in Rajasthan is embedded in local village cultures. By working with Indian artists who have specialised in processes of creative facilitation and inquiry we expect not only to collaboratively explore traditional practices, but also to disseminate this knowledge and experience in an accessible form to national and international policy circles and stakeholders.Our approach to 'care' draws on the experiences associated with the AHRC-funded project 'Towards-Hydrocitizenship' (2014-2017) through which PI Dr Buser studied the practices of urban water infrastructural maintenance and mending. Following Joan Tronto, we understand care to be 'everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair our world so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web' (1993, 103). Within the context of Rajasthan's traditional water infrastructures, this means looking to the way care is both a disposition and (often unacknowledged or unrecognised) practice that permeates social relations. It also explicitly acknowledges the non-human as a key agent in care assemblages. Our programme involves three workshops through which we will facilitate cross-disciplinary and international collaboration. The first two of these will take place in Rajasthan where we will discuss and explore the conditions of water scarcity and water infrastructure in Rajasthan. This will include working with Indian-based arts practitioners and traditional water infrastructure users and caretakers. The third workshop will take place in Bristol, UK and centre on widening creative, academic and policy engagement with the concepts of infrastructural care and furthering our research agenda. This will include a mini-conference and an exhibition of materials and creative outputs from the first two workshops and Indian arts commissions.