Description
Riverscapes are socio-ecological systems where human and nonhuman entities co-create and co-transform. However, anthropocentric water governance frameworks have long treated water as a “resource” or “service,” leaving nonhuman entities with no agency and dependent on human decisions for protection. Innovative participatory approaches like role-playing games (RPGs) offer experimental spaces for alternative perspectives and extending justice to ignored nonhumans. We developed the RPG “The Nonhuman Rhine Assembly,” composed exclusively of 9 nonhuman roles living in the Rhine River basin, one of Europe's most regulated ecosystems. The 9 roles include the Mother River, floodplains, aquatic and riparian vegetation, migratory fish, birds, amphibians, endangered native species, and invasive species, all framed as agentive subjects endowed with intrinsic, relational values. Between 2025 and 2026, we conducted 7 workshops in France, Poland, and Germany that brought together +110 participants from diverse backgrounds, who co-designed eco-centric restoration strategies for the Rhine's future rooted in social-ecological justice. Through analysis of the proposed scenarios, the teamwork dynamics, and participants' feedback, we show that RPGs can help operationalize nonhuman agency and stimulate ethical and political encounters, even when nonhuman representations remain mediated by human knowledge systems. The RPG also facilitated context-specific river commoning practices, e.g., recognition of the river as a living being and inclusive scenario-building grounded in interspecies negotiation, echoing the global Rights of Nature movements. Younger participants particularly demonstrated social learning outcomes that may promote environmental stewardship. We argue that integrating RPGs into real-world water governance, e.g., as pedagogical experiments for stakeholders/through the institutionalization of interspecies councils, can help move multispecies justice beyond a “utopian desire”.
| Topic | Topic 1: : Methods for integrating social and ecological knowledge |
|---|