Beyond the thalweg: Toward a Buddhist framework for hydrosocial research

Recognizing that Western ways of knowing have been an underlying force resulting in the current conditions of the earth, scholars and practitioners have been exploring other worldviews and understandings for hydrosocial research. Much of this work has been focused on Indigenous ways of knowing, which are often considered to be place and culture-based; and hence inappropriate in other contexts and/or for use by non-Indigenous actors. Alternatively, Buddhism was purposely disseminated widely and has been successfully adopted throughout the world over the past 2500 years. Like Indigenous knowledge systems, the very core of Buddhist philosophy is a different way of thinking and knowing, which is based on concepts like interdependence, impermanence, and ethics. We build off of previous work by scholars and Buddhist leaders to connect Buddhist philosophy and hydrosocial research, with the aim of developing a pluralistic framework to serve as a middle path of knowing.