Water, Gender, and Climate Change
I found this article interesting, especially Chapter 3, Subheading 3.4. It discusses how gender relates to water systems and their governance. For instance, the longer it takes to collect water, the less time there is for other activities. While this can be a positive (one takeaway is that sometimes women like spending time gathering water…
Pakistan and Mississippi
I wanted to take a moment just to acknowledge two important events that are happening this week. First, historic flooding in Pakistan has displaced millions. Second, in Jackson, Mississippi, flooding has led to the failure of the city’s water treatment plant, leaving the city without drinkable water. Both of these events are related to climate…
Can the same water mean different things in different places?
Summarizing Kaplan, M. (2008). Fijian Water in Fiji and New York: Local Politics and a Global Commodity. Cultural Anthropology, 22(4), 685–706. https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2007.22.4.685. Kaplan explores what water means in two different places–one, in Fiji, and two, in New York. The insight, however, comes from the fact that it is the same water in two places–Fijian water.…
Pointing out some problems with the politics of watershed level management
A Summary of Blomquist, W., & Schlager, E. (2005). Political Pitfalls of Integrated Watershed Management. Society & Natural Resources, 18(2), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920590894435 Blomquist and Schlager are a political scientist and professor of public policy, respectively. This work is about some issues that they’ve found with the concept of “integrated watershed management.” They define this term…
Renewal
After a bit of a break, I’m happy to share that Cultural Water Studies is being renewed. I’ve purposely chosen the word “renewed”. I see a connection between the idea of renewal and our purpose here. From time to time in any river, there are important times when change happens, when the course is changed…
The cyclical nature of water in Lori Markman’s: “Barbi 1952-2011”
Markman, Lori, “Barbi 1952-2011,” oil on canvas, 48″ x 48,” 2015. I made this painting as a memorial to Barbi who was my best friend from childhood to the time she died. She died far too soon. She was lost in her last years. The inspiration came from a child hood photo of Barbi in…
A stranger has asked me to reflect on water
A poem by Aleh Rifka, c. 2021 So I think of a dream I’ve had earlier this week Where I am sitting in a laundromat I used to visit as a child Nothing is too specific as far as details go Except for the muted orange plastic chair Where I sit as I watch my…
Sedimentary Meaning
Video by Stuart Deets, November 2020. Video of the trains that run along the river while a co-traveler whistles in the background. How can a river be so many things at once? I took the video above while traveling on the Mississippi River in October-November 2020, from Bdote to Hastings, MN. In the video, we…
A Tribute to Breathing
Photograph by Cassidy Schoenfelder, Sophie’s funeral for biodiversity (cleansing), Selway River, Idaho, Summer 2019. Migration and movement occur at microscopic levels. Consider the way the new coronavirus, referred to as “COVID-19” by the World Health Organization following their February 11, 2020 announcement, moves and migrates through bodies across the globe. This virus spill-over from nonhuman…
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