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River contracts (RCs) are voluntary agreements between stakeholders for managing water bodies and involve participatory, evidence‐based action plans. Increasingly, European authorities recognise that effective water policies require bottom‐up, inclusive decision‐making. Despite widely held assumptions about the benefits of including stakeholders in river basin management and encouraging participatory mechanisms of decision‐making, the growing rhetoric about the need for public engagement implies that this 'new' paradigm of water management remains filled with ambiguities. Adopting ethnographic methods and drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, this paper analyses three RCs in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy. These case studies reveal the potential for RCs as tools not only for water management, but also for increasing stakeholder involvement through place‐making activities conceived as potential hydrophilic encounters. In order to understand whether RCs contribute to a fluvial sense of place, we looked at the effects of top‐down versus participatory processes. We asked whether RCs were considered participatory processes designed to achieve a co‐designed outcome or simply territorial management projects that objectify the river as something to be developed. We found that ratifying an RC was not, in itself, proof of an effective process; rather the nature and quality of an RC was determined by the degree and type of participation. We contend that participatory events and sharing information are not sufficient in themselves to achieve the active involvement of all stakeholders. We argue that the best framework for enabling place‐making and enhancing a sense of place is to develop RCs within a process that includes a high degree of participation. This enables citizens to shift from simply being passive recipients of plans to becoming effective territorial actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research or concepts in the biological field have often been used as a basis to root political projects of different orientations. In the libertarian literature, there have also been attempts to explore the link between the natural world and the possibility of freedom by combining discoveries in biological fields and research in philosophical/political fields. In the first part of our work, we analyse Peter Kropotkin’s thought, especially his theory of mutual aid, focusing on his proto-ecological concepts. This section also focuses on the Social Ecology of Murray Bookchin in the context of the evolution of life in the natural world. The concepts of cooperation, empathy and mutual aid are explored, and also revolution, federalism and egalitarian ethics. In the second part, we review these ideas and concepts, drawing on insights from recent discoveries in the study of ecology and evolutionary biology. We conclude our review by discussing how these natural principles can inform social projects and social organisation, identifying how mismatches between social and biological organisation have contributed to inequality and domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]