Wetness in the grasslands by Gabrielle Fenton

I invite you to follow me as I inquire over the recent years’ drought(s) in Flanders. We will follow various leads that tell the story of this drought as it unfolds in the particular context of the dairy grasslands of the Scheldt’s estuary. Following Vaughn et al.’s call for ‘intersectional ecologies’, these various pathways will enable us to grasp pieces of - some of - the ways in which this drought gains materiality, is known and narrated and plays into local subjectivities. Moreover, the drought will offer a window to observe, grasp and question the 'wetness' of the dairy grasslands. Following Krause, we will not attempt to look at wetness within the frame of a binary opposition between the wet and the dry, but rather as a possibility that emerges within a “particular social, economic, and political arrangement” and “in relation to particular human activities and projects” (Krause, 2017:405-406).