Terje Oestigaard

Terje Tvedt

These three volumes present an original exploration of all aspects of water – social, cultural, political, religious, historical, economic and technological – from ancient times until the present day. Among the varied themes, the contributors examine the changing histories of water as a private or common good, the politics of water at local, urban, national and international level. With empirical and ethnographic case studies from around the world the three volumes together represent one of the most complete and up to date accounts of the central role of water in the history and development of humanity.

Water and Urbanization

A History of Water: Series III, Volume 1

Atakilte Beyene

Helga Ogmundardottir

In recent years, we have seen an accelerating interest in large-scale water infrastructures, such as multipurpose dams and irrigation schemes, in the Nile Region. Climate change and rapid urban growth create tensions between countries over access to water, as spells of drought increase in length and intensity.

From Aswan to Stiegler's Gorge: Small Stories about Large Dams

Fredrik Fahlander

Post-disciplinary Studies in the 21st Century

Material Culture and Other Things

Comparing Past and Present Traditions in the Nile Basin Region

Water, Culture and Identity

Emil Sandstrom

Anders Jagerskog

The Nile River Basin supports the livelihoods of millions of people in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, principally as water for agriculture and hydropower. The resource is the focus of much contested development, not only between upstream and downstream neighbours, but also from countries outside the region. This book investigates the water, land and energy nexus in the Nile Basin. It explains how the current surge in land and energy investments, both by foreign actors as well as domestic investors, affects already strained transboundary relations in the region and how investments are intertwined within wider contexts of Nile Basin history, politics and economy. Overall, the book presents a range of perspectives, drawing on political science, international relations theory, sociology, history and political ecology.

Challenges and new investments

Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin

Anders Kaliff

Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.

Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

In this original work, the author aims to develop a synthetic perspective for enhancing the understanding of the roles death and life-giving waters have in the constitution of society and cosmos in karmic traditions through a material culture study of death and funeral practices as cultural, ritual, and religious processes in parts of Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and the Indus Valley.

Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions

Death and Life-giving Waters

Terje Oestigaard

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