Theory of Water: World-Making with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

What can we learn from water?

In this live conversation from Tidelands in Seattle, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, musician, and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson joins All My Relations to discuss her new book Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead, our second selection for the All My Relations Book Club.

Leanne invites us to listen to water as both teacher and theorist, “Water changes forms from a solid to a liquid to a gas. It expands our understanding of time. It always escapes the container, and it connects us all.” Instead of centering land as the primary orientation point, she turns to water to imagine how we might build beyond the limits of the present.

Together we explore grief, creation stories, Indigenous resurgence, and the difficult work of world-making in a time shaped by colonialism, racial capitalism, and ecological crisis. As Leanne reminds us, “Listening to water and thinking through world making means that we have to collaborate with each other… building against this present moment. That’s a struggle, but it’s a relational struggle to give birth to something different.”

At its heart, this conversation asks what it means to create futures rooted in Indigenous intelligence, care, and responsibility—and what water might already be teaching us about how to begin.

A/V Production by Francisco “Pancho” Sánchez @videosdelsancho

Music by Mato Wayuhi @matowayuhi

Produced by Matika Wilbur @matikawilbur

Episode Artwork by Kitana Marie @creatortwahna

Video Edit/Social Media by Mandy Yeahpau @dontguacbloc

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Follow us on Instagram @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon.  Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now!  T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.