Decolonizing Hydrosocial Relations: The River as a Site of Ethical Encounter in Alan Michelson's TwoRow II

With Mohawk artist Alan Michelson’s 2005 video art installation Two Row II as a site of analysis, I interrogate the potential for decolonized relationships between two distinct cultures, interconnected through their relationships to a seemingly shared body of water as it cuts across territories that have been historically and contemporarily contested. Drawing on the concept of the “hydrosocial,” I begin by considering the ethical potential of water, as well as its circumscription under current Canadian land rights policies. I then explore the intersubjective hydrosocial relations that structure community engagement along the Grand River. I ask if focusing on water, its ability to both act, and be acted upon, how it both produces and is produced through social relations, allows for a rethought ethical and political paradigm based in theories of action and responsibility that cross human and non-human divides? How can water work as an ethical framework in ways that decolonize water politics, and illustrate a more nuanced and adequately relational environmental ethic that might shape the manner in which land rights issues unfold and are understood? Ultimately, I look to the potential to cultivate a decolonized ecological sensibility grounded in the ethical and political capacity of water in relation to Indigenous land rights issues within the settler-colonial context of Canada.