NWO grant for Sludge Matters!

Sludge Matters! is an ethnographic exploration of post-flood river sludge and its implications in socioecological relations. The NWO awards them with an SGW Open Compition grant. Dr. Irene van Oorschot, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Eurasmus University Rotterdam, applied for the grant and postdoc Annelies Kuijpers is involved as a researcher.

In 2021 the Geul in Limburg the Netherlands flooded. Sludge Matters! will analyse how the river’s sludge has informed, transformed, and deformed socio-ecological relations within the Geul riverscape. Van Oorschot and Kuijpers hope to develop an approach to better understand post-disaster landscapes attuned to the persistent materialities after such a disaster and the ways these impinge on nature-culture relationships. Furthering disaster and post-disaster research by adopting a post-humanist lens, this study will help decision-makers and other stakeholders improve future preparedness for natural disasters in the Netherlands and beyond.

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