More-than-human geographies of transformation: Hydropolitical spaces of contamination in and around Bitterfeld-Wolfen (Eastern Germany)
Diversity in Socio-Ecological Transformations
How are water, pollutants, and industrial legacies in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen region politically, ecologically, and socially negotiated, and how do these negotiations shape the transformation of hydropolitical spaces?
This research project explores the profound entanglements of water, space, and politics—and the extent to which these entanglements exceed the boundaries of human agency. The Bitterfeld-Wolfen region embodies a long industrial history in which mining, chemical production, hydraulic engineering, and wastewater management have shaped groundwater and river systems to this day. The resulting dynamics of pollutants—particularly those associated with persistent Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH)—generate not only ecological risks but also complex arenas of negotiation among nature conservation, remediation of contaminated sites, property relations, agricultural use, and regional transformation goals. In this project I seek to trace the manifold ways in which people engage both with the ecological legacies of the past and with the agency of water, pollutants, and other more-than-human entities. I argue that the transformation of hydropolitical spaces should not simply be conceived as a purely technical or political process but as deeply relational. Thus, I see investigating these relations—their conflicts, materialities, temporalities, and histories— as crucial for understanding how hydropolitical spaces of contamination can be made inhabitable, transformed, and shaped in sustainable ways
