The method.

Intellectually, we know that water is an essential resource for human society.  But rarely do we acknowledge the emotional significance of water, for ourselves and others.  We know there are methods for studying and publicly communicating the quality of water sources in New Jersey, but what about their meaning?

This project developed a public storytelling method for documenting and sharing lived experiences, memories and feelings about New Jersey water sources.  We were curious to understand how New Jersey residents feel about places of water and to develop creative ways of giving voice to these fluvial feelings.  We collected water stories in public workshops because we wanted to facilitate transformative acts of sharing and listening to water stories with strangers.

Our emotional connections to places of water, individually and as a society, shape how we view, value and manage water resources and environments.   Importantly, our memories and experiences with water don’t happen just anywhere, they occur somewhere.  This project uses public storytelling to explore and document place-based, human connections to water in New Jersey.

The workshops.

• Public libraries were selected as the primary audience and venue for the workshops, as they remain the most inclusive and accessible institutions and spaces; they are centralized, indoor public spaces for all ages.
• While there were slight differences in the context and framing of each workshop, the verbal prompt and activities remained the same.  To facilitate hospitable social space for public storytelling, the workshops began with oral history consent practices and forms, including discussion of the development of this website.  We invited participants to share their experience and shape the dialogue (we do not ask for socioeconomic information) using the following activities:
• Think of a ‘New Jersey water source’ that is meaningful to you – this may be any place of water experience
• Select a sensory prompt to represent this water source, either a blue ribbon of different shades and colors or a Mason jar, depending on the specific workshop (some sites used Mason jars filled with water from meaningful sources by participants, whereas others use jars containing water that represents the meaningful source
• Label your sensory prompt with the name of this water source and a few words describing its personal significance using the permanent marker
• Verbally share your water story, if inspired  (we audio record if they have consented)
• Cooperatively arrange your individual sensory prompts, representing New Jersey water sources, into a group mental map on a flat surface
• Discuss any themes, patterns, or observations about the stories or group mental map

While we set out to host hour-long public workshops in every county of the state (June 2019 – March 2020), our efforts were cut short due to the covid-19 pandemic, forcing us to cancel three workshops.

If you’re Interested in hosting a workshop with a small group of people (perhaps outdoors or with your own “COVID pod”), here is our toolkit for hosting your own watershed stories workshop.  Let us know how it goes by leaving us a voicemail message on the Watershed Stories Hotline 856-256-4830!

The stories.

Each audio excerpt was part of a longer recording of the whole workshop.  The stories have been extracted for the purposes of aggregating stories about certain waterways together.  We have also included the full recordings because we believe that is the best way to preserve the context with which someone shared.