Doctoral Dissertation Research: People, Land, and Water along the Lower Colorado River

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation project analyzes how the use and development of rivers has shaped territory, society, and conflicts in borderlands. Paradoxically rivers fix political boundaries yet shift unpredictably across their floodplains, posing problems of jurisdiction and questions of international sovereignty. Additionally, governments manipulated rivers for irrigation, changing river channels so drastically that they no longer adhere to the boundaries they supposedly demarcate. This research examines how rivers have shaped landscapes of belonging and exclusion by focusing on socially differentiated river communities whose shared boundaries shifted when rivers shifted. In response, these communities formed alliances and negotiated conflicts among one another. The doctoral student will evaluate how communities are differentially impacted by contemporary water controversies such as drought and river restoration. Findings will be disseminated to water managers, conservation groups, and the public through publication of written materials in regional outlets and a broadly accessible book. Findings and oral history interviews will be converted into digital narratives to contribute to public debate about the contemporary legacy of past river use and development and can serve as instructional material in classrooms. Results will be shared with the relevant communities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising graduate student to establish an independent research career. Through its focus on the physical manifestation of boundaries, this project will reveal how power has been routed through rivers to shape landscapes of belonging and exclusion for different social communities. Integrating ideas from environmental history, political ecology, and borderlands studies, the doctoral student will investigate: (1) how river development in the form of dams, canals, and reservoirs made and re-made territorial boundaries separating Native American and African-American river communities; and (2) how these communities responded to shifting river boundaries through alliances, oppositions, and internal divisions to remain rooted to an increasingly managed landscape. National archival material will demonstrate how river development caused these boundaries to shift, while local archival collections and oral history interviews will demonstrate how these local communities responded in turn. Case studies will focus on communities that have been historically divided by changing boundaries set by this transnational, dynamic, and essential river. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.