Framing the Flood

Abstract

This thesis explores how Dutch infrastructural interventions—particularly those relating to flood defence—have been shaped not only by material concerns but by the language, assumptions, and narratives surrounding them. Focusing on three moments of infrastructural decision-making—1960, 1976, and 2018—it traces the development of discourse around nature, control, and human responsibility.
The research examines post-1953 Delta Works, revealing how flood safety was framed as a matter of rational mastery. While ecological effects were mostly overlooked or reinterpreted in financial terms, engineers were imagined national heroes. This framing persisted through to the mid-1970s, even as protests emerged and ecological awareness grew.
Drawing on a range of sources—including governmental reports, parliamentary debates, and newspapers—the thesis examines how acknowledgment for ecological concerns slowly increased, but was never truly independent from a controlling, top-down approach. Even in seemingly restorative decisions, such as the reopening of the Haringvliet sluices in 2018, nature was granted a role under strict parameters—constantly monitored and managed to fit human demands.
Rather than a straightforward shift from control to co-constitution, the thesis suggests a more subtle reconfiguration: in which the language of responsibility and guardianship continues to mask the systems of human dominance. This framing not only influences policy but reflects broader cultural assumptions about who is 'permitted' agency. What emerges is a need to think more carefully about what it means to share space—both ecologically and discursively.