Our Awa are Calling Us: A Queer Feminist Ecology Exploration of Imaginaries of the Tukituki Awa

River imaginaries are the (im)material ways that rivers are known, related to and desirably envisioned into the future. A settler colonial river imaginary tends to be dominant across Aotearoa New Zealand. It understands rivers as inanimate resources which can and should be controlled to serve settler desires. This imaginary underpins the physical and ontological straightening of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rivers. An example of this is the proposed Ruataniwha Dam in the headwaters of the Tukituki awa. The proposed dam aims to provide large-scale water storage to meet agricultural demand in Tamatea while also being presented as a solution to a broader set of ecological, economic, and social concerns. However, local communities have contested the Ruataniwha Dam as a desirable vision of the future. This points to the existence of alternative imaginaries of the Tukituki awa. With the aim of unsettling a settler colonial river imaginary and carving out space for alternatives to be explored, my research asks, ‘what are some of the alternative imaginaries of the Tukituki awa?’ I work through queer feminist ecology to explore the multiplicity and fluidity of alternative river imaginaries and to forge relationships of solidarity with Māori, more-than-humans, and other marginalised beings. Through walking semi-structured interviews, I engage with the imaginaries of six people who challenge the Ruataniwha Dam and have a personal connection with the Tukituki awa. Their alternative imaginaries understand the Tukituki awa as a lively, interconnected, (im)material being. Thinking beyond the dam as the only option for the future, participants express desires to move toward living with the Tukituki awa in intimate and reciprocal relationships. They map pathways toward such a future while also showing that alternative imaginaries are already lived realities in many contexts. This research also contributes to the development of queer feminist ecology in Aotearoa New Zealand.