ABSTRACT
Kiribati is one of the poorest nations in the Pacific and struggling with the effects of climate change. Sea level rise, erosion, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers is already commonplace. It is projected that by 2050 the islands will be overcome by the sea and uninhabitable.
In this chapter I describe the formation of atolls, and how people came to live in these harsh island environments. Through ethnographic material I analyse how the emerging relationship between water, land, and humans can create novel thinking about the uncertain future facing the villagers. I draw a comparison between the way the villagers have learned to live in changing environments, and the way water moves through environments, and I call this ‘thinking like water moves’.
To unveil this thinking I illustrate how knowing water took place in the interstitial space between what water shaped as it carved out an environment on the one hand, and how people understood what the water was ‘up to’ and directed its flows on the other. Perhaps to give some small hope I argue that understanding how the environment works and anticipating the future were still important to people on islands affected by global anthropogenic climate change.
