# What water can teach us about resistance and survival Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cwHdblsqSw Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/1cwHdblsqSw Generated: 2025-07-21T22:33:03.676+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview Water teaches that resistance and survival stem from embracing profound interconnectedness, learning from water's transformative and persistent nature, and actively weaving into existing ecological cycles rather than attempting to remake the world, thereby refusing death-making systems like capitalism and colonialism. **Key Points:** - Water serves as a theory for life, affiliation, and global connection, embodying indigenous internationalism and offering an alternative to colonial land-centric narratives. - Water's properties, such as its transformative states and persistent ability to wear away rock or escape containers, provide a model for steadfastness and grounding solidarity. - The concept of "cintering," where snowflakes bond without destroying themselves or their neighbors, illustrates a way of belonging to the planet without destruction. - The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted intimate connections through water droplets in breath, revealing how capitalist individualism hinders communal care and makes relationality difficult. - Indigenous thought emphasizes relationality, viewing the body as a hub of relationships with all forms of life, contrasting with capitalist disconnection. - Learning from species like eels and bullfrogs, as taught by mentor Doug Williams, reveals the "shifting baseline syndrome" and the importance of fitting into existing ecological networks rather than remaking the world. - Interconnectedness acts as a "generative refusal" against death-making forces like capitalism and colonialism, fostering collaborative struggle and solidarity to protect Indigenous homelands from extractivism. **Context:** Leanne Beta Samasake Simpson, a Mishi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and musician, discusses her latest book, "Theory of Water," which explores water as a framework for understanding life, global connection, and indigenous internationalism. Her work challenges colonial narratives that frame Indigenous homelands as empty or their knowledge as inferior, moving beyond state-defined "rights discourse" to a deeper understanding of relationality. The book draws heavily on Nishnaabeg intellectual practice and the teachings of her late mentor, Doug Williams, an Anishinaabe educator and elder. ## Detailed Analysis Leanne Beta Samasake Simpson's "Theory of Water" posits water as a profound framework for understanding life, global connection, and indigenous internationalism, shifting focus from land-centric colonial narratives to a water-based relationality. Simpson explains that water's transformative nature—from solid to liquid to gas—and its global cycle demonstrate persistence and steadfastness, offering a model for grounding solidarity. She introduces "cintering," the process of snowflakes bonding, as a metaphor for belonging to the planet without destroying oneself or others, a practice she observed while grooming snow. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the intimate connection through water droplets in breath, revealing how capitalist individualism fosters disconnection and makes communal relationality challenging, despite the inherent interdependency. Simpson emphasizes that Anishinaabe thought views the body as a hub of relationships with all life forms, advocating for a "reskilling" in community living that prioritizes care. She highlights artist Rebecca Belmore's installations, "Speaking to Our Mother" and "Wave Sound," which illustrate dialogue with the land and the practice of listening to water at generative shoreline sites. The book is deeply influenced by her late mentor, Doug Williams, whose teachings on eels (once half of Lake Ontario's biomass, traveling from the Sargasso Sea as "relatives" and "messengers") and bullfrogs (whose declining populations led to a court fight for harvesting rights) reveal the "shifting baseline syndrome" and the profound loss of ecological knowledge. Simpson concludes that rather than "remaking the world," humans, particularly "cis white heterosexual men that are capitalists," must learn to "fit into the cascading networks of life" that already exist, drawing lessons from other species. This interconnectedness serves as a "generative refusal" against death-making forces like capitalism, fascism, and colonialism, fostering collaborative struggle and solidarity to protect Indigenous homelands from ongoing extractivism, as exemplified by Bill Five and the uncritical embrace of Canadian nationalism. ### Thematic Foundations of "Theory of Water" - Water as a theory of life, affiliation, and global connection - Indigenous internationalism as an alternative to colonial land-centric narratives - Water's transformative properties and global cycle as models for persistence and solidarity ### Lessons from Water's Properties - "Cintering" of snowflakes as a metaphor for belonging without destruction - Water's ability to escape containers as a form of resistance - Water's role in intimate human connection, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and breath droplets ### Challenging Disconnection and Embracing Relationality - Capitalism's investment in disconnection and its impact on Indigenous peoples - Anishinaabe thought viewing the body as a hub of relationships - The difficulty and necessity of "reskilling" for community living, involving boundaries, consent, and accountability ### Dialogue with the Natural World - Rebecca Belmore's "Speaking to Our Mother" (birch bark megaphone for speaking to land) - Rebecca Belmore's "Wave Sound" (stone listening devices for listening to water at shorelines) - The generative nature of shorelines as sites for learning community skills ### Influence of Mentor Doug Williams - Doug Williams' teachings on eels as relatives and messengers from the Sargasso Sea - The "shifting baseline syndrome" revealed through the decline of eels and bullfrogs - The humility of realizing how little one knows about one's homeland due to ecological destruction ### Resistance and Survival Through Interconnectedness - "Fitting into" existing ecological networks rather than "remaking the world" as a path to hope - Interconnectedness as a "generative refusal" against death-making forces like capitalism and colonialism - The predictable struggle against extractivism on Indigenous lands, exemplified by Bill Five and Canadian nationalism