How to Care for a River? Collaborative mapping in the Bogotá River (Colombia)

River Cities Network (RCN) online presentation by "Mapping the Upper Nile: Reviving Nubian Heritage for a Sustainable Future" ISGS participant Laura Giraldo-Martínez on the Bogotá River, Colombia, 28 May 2026. About the presentation In recent decades, conservation, restoration, and legal protection of water sources and páramo socio-ecosystems have been key aspects of water management in Colombia. Environmental policy prioritizes river conservation in the high mountains but protection fades as the river flows downstream, the question of how to narrate and represent the relationships between the upper and middle basins becomes fundamental — an answer woven together with the ways in which community-based processes and daily practices care for, value, and understand the river beyond its definition as water resource. In this talk we focus on maps and mapping as performative tools. Maps shape rivers discursively and materially by informing decision-making processes, fixing scales and socioecological boundaries, establishing hydrological functions, and defining property and resource access or distribution. Moreover, maps carry a pedagogical function, molding how we, as riverine communities, relate to rivers. Grounded in cartographic analysis and ethnographic and action-research approaches, conducted through collaborative and participatory methods by the entre―ríos collective in alliance with the River Commons project, we show that river commoning initiatives and care actions along the Bogotá River have the potential to link upstream protection with downstream realities, contributing to the enlivening of the river. Chapters 00:00 – Stream Start/Introductions 01:38 - Background of the project - How to care for a river 05:01 - About the Bogotá River 10:02 - The river in context 18:10 - Collaborative mapping with entre—ríos 30:30 - Thinking of creative ways to represent the river - publication 33:53 - Explanation about the publication 40:26 - Commoning and enlivening rivers About the River Cities Network (RCN) The River Cities Network (RCN) is a multi-sited global initiative to pursue action research on the interrelationship between cities and their rivers and waterways. In the RCN context, we are interested in free-flowing or engineered rivers, creeks, canals and/or networks of these as part of a river system in urban or peri-urban areas. The “river-city nexus” is our shorthand for the mutual relationship between these water bodies, their ecosystems, and the human settlements that surround them. Website: https://www.rivercities.world/ About the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS): Across multiple platforms and programmes, IIAS, based in Leiden, the Netherlands, promotes critical, humanistic, and collaborative work on, with, in, and beyond Asia. IIAS takes a thematic approach to the study of 'Asia in the World', working with scholars and practitioners from different world regions, disciplines and sectors, thus bringing academic and non-academic institutes together to foster an inclusive and diverse learning and research community. Hosted and supported by Leiden University, IIAS functions as an autonomous, versatile, interdisciplinary, and inter-regional facilitating platform that serves a multitude of stakeholders in Asia, Europe, and other regions worldwide. Thus, the Institute contributes decisively to the university’s new international strategy to act as a bridge across cultures and between diverse paths of knowledge. Want to learn more about 'Asia in the World'? Follow us here: Website: https://www.iias.asia/ Instagram: /asian_studies LinkedIn: /asianstudies FaceBook: /asianstudies