On 19 January, in partnership with the Faith & Belief Forum and in the lead up to the annual Interfaith Youth Summit co-hosted with the LSE Faith Centre, Dr Anastasia Badder (CIP) and Lauryn Duncan-Rouse (F&BF) convened the workshop Cambridge without Water.
Held at Michaelhouse, this interactive event aimed to explore present and future water crises via a scenario that was fictionalized – but not beyond the realm of imagination.
The event opened with input from experts on water management across a range of disciplinary perspectives and sectors: engineering, political science, conservation, and economics. Guest speakers included Prof Edoardo Borgomeo (University of Cambridge,), Dr Tobias Müller (University of Cambridge), Prof Julia Talbot-Jones (Victory University of Wellington), and Iain Webb (The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire & Northamptonshire). Meanwhile workshop participants brought along expertise in the relationships between faith and climate action, as well as interfaith encounter.
Participants were then invited to imagine themselves in the role of a Cabinet of Crisis, brought together to respond to a fast-approaching crisis: Cambridge will run out of drinking water in one month. How can and should we respond?
A far-reaching, wide-ranging discussion
Working in groups and guided by a series of open-ended prompts, workshop participants dove into their work assessing the potential impacts, effects, and possible mitigating actions for this crisis. Groups touched on challenging questions and controversies, confronted disagreements and doubts, contended with fears and unknowns, and surfaced unlikely spaces for hope. Conversations varied widely and dove into the details of the consequences, considerations, and solutions of the proposed crisis, highlighting social, infrastructural, political, educational, health, economic, relational, religious, and other issues.
Each group ultimately came up with a series of goals and proposed courses of action. Across the groups, possible actions varied widely, indicating diversity of imagination about possible ways forward. (We have agreed not to publish any examples, lest this reduce the impact when we run another Cabinet of Crisis, as we surely will.)
An imaginative space for expansive thinking
As participants noted, water shortages and other crises are not mere fictions. They have happened and continue to happen around the world – and Cambridge is in fact in the midst of its own water crisis.
By exploring such a crisis through a specific, fictionalized framework, participants felt encouraged to trouble water commonsense and question water management techniques and actions that appear inevitable, (un)obvious, or (im)possible.
A moment of encounter
Involving experts in water management and young people of faith invested in climate action, this event brought together perspectives, voices, and individuals who might not otherwise be likely to meet each other in conversations about water.
As guest speaker Iain Webb remarked: “We need more opportunities for this kind of exchange. I’m meeting people and learning things I never would have otherwise…I can see the benefit of bringing together so many different approaches and experiences.”
We indeed plan to organize similar events in the future, so watch this space...
This event was sponsored by the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum (Small Grant scheme) and co-funded by The Faith & Belief Forum.