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“The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines

Identification

Public canonical key
doi:10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413
Authors
Gideon Lasco · Anita Petra Hardon
Reported year
2026
Reported language
en
Source type
article
First detected
2026-11-09T19:04:47.722154+00:00
Last metadata observation
2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Last HTTP verification
Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Ateneo de Manila University · University of the Philippines Diliman · Wageningen University & Research

Reported affiliation countries

NL · PH

Documentary abstract — original language

Amid an “environmental necropolitics” and a neoliberal paradigm of economic development that views rivers, lakes, and seas as resources to be exploited, sites to be displaced, or land to be “reclaimed”, environmental debates in the Philippines have sedimented around the vital status of the bodies of water in question. In some instances, government agencies and private corporations stake the legitimacy of their infrastructure projects with the claim that the affected body of water is “dead”, while environmental advocates contest the “death” of bodies of water to argue for their continuous protection. In other cases, governments hold up the status of being “alive” of a body of water as evidence of their sound management, while environmental advocates contest such claims, invoking the “dying” state of those bodies to the urgency of their conservationist demands. Drawing on an analysis of public discourse grounded in a broader ethnography and inspired by anthropology, STS, and multispecies perspectives on life and death, this article looks at three bodies of water in the Philippines – Manila Bay, Pasig River, and Laguna de Bay – to explore these “vital debates”, including how various genres of expertise figure in them. What is at stake in these debates, we argue, are scientific and cultural assumptions about what it means for a body of water to be dead – and the political and economic implications of recognising it as alive.

Identifiers

OPENALEX
W7165563495
DOI
10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413

Documentary context

Documentary family
Scholarship
Source-reported types
article
Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources
PH
Natural entities mentioned
River · Lake · Sea · Lagoon

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary field provenance

Source-backed values and values with unresolved provenance are kept separately. Bibliographic provenance validates no legal claim.

Title
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Publication
Documentary source reported
Authors
Documentary source reported
Document type
Documentary source reported
Jurisdiction
Studied subject derived from explicit documentary context
Court
Not recorded
Issuing authority
Not recorded
Publisher
Not recorded
DOI
Documentary source reported
ISBN
Not recorded
Official identifier
Not recorded
Source URL
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Source-reported status
Not recorded
Amendment / repeal
Not recorded

Cite this reference

Gideon Lasco; Anita Petra Hardon. “The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413

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APA, Chicago, ISO 690: bibliographic formats using available fields. OSCOLA / Bluebook: structured data only; full legal citation compliance is not claimed without verification of required elements.

APA
Gideon Lasco; Anita Petra Hardon. (2026). “The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413
Chicago
Gideon Lasco; Anita Petra Hardon. “The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413
ISO 690
Gideon Lasco; Anita Petra Hardon. “The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library. “The river is dead, the lake is dying, the bay is still alive”: vital debates and environmental necropolitics in the Philippines. Documentary record: https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-38d4fd8d63b306129c32907a48e7e3ff/ · Last HTTP verification: not performed

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Field provenance and record version

Version 167ff3394f08f9ab · udtr-reference-1.1.2

Title
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Authors
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Year
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Identifiers
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Source URL
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
Source-reported author ORCID
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00

History tracks record metadata and does not certify the state of the law.

fc52a97a03349b5f · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00

d7fd0c40975cc09e · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00

d611bd63cc1ea91d · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00

167ff3394f08f9ab · 2026-11-09T19:14:25.145616+00:00

Frozen-version metadata

Research dossiers and documentary relations

PH ·

Ateneo de Manila University

University of the Philippines Diliman

Wageningen University & Research

Anita Petra Hardon

Gideon Lasco

Source roles

Discovery source · https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2026.2687413

Discovery source · https://openalex.org/W7165563495

An authority link alone does not verify a legal claim. Abstracts and full texts remain subject to their source terms.

Documentary status

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