In January 2019, a Centre for Environmental Humanities small grant enabled me to attend the ‘Biography of the Meuse’ expert meeting in Maastricht, Netherlands.

Organized by Dr. Christian Ernsten of Maastricht University, this was an excellent example of disciplinary boundary crossing at work. In attendance were interested publics as well as experts representing a wide array of disciplines, including engineering, archaeology, anthropology, history, environmental philosophy, and heritage studies. With the Meuse (or Maas) River as a common matter of interest and concern, people presented a host of fascinating research projects from a wide array of different perspectives. Many productive conversations about the river, its histories, and its interrelations with human beings were provoked. A number of the ideas and methods I encountered and experts I met at the meeting are helping me to conceptualize and develop my own water-related project in South Africa. In particular, I am taken by methodologies and conceptual frame-works which place water bodies themselves at the heart of things, rather than just human perceptions and experiences of them.