Inhabiting an Aqueous World: Design Research for the Environment and Communities

The monsoon terrain of the Southwestern Ghats in India has been territorialized through an act of colonial power, which either settled or marginalized peoples, practices, ecologies, and particularly, the weather—privileging a wet-dry binary and spatializing a mobile wet world. This chapter focuses on indigenous “wet ontologies” that privilege everyday practices across time, continually making a home in rain and wetness. The rain and multiple conditions of wetness across seasons are undeniable and inescapable, yet policy frames do not recognize them as ordinary, as a medium through which life occurs and is ever-present. This chapter addresses this concern by suggesting the possibility of new policy frameworks designed from lived experiences, responding to flux and wet ontologies. As we walk through an inherited past, a conflicted present, and possibilities for the future, the chapter explores the realities of soaking ecologies. It draws upon insights from primary research conducted by walking with inhabitants of the Ghats in Wayanad, Kerala.