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

本博士论文项目分析了河流的利用和开发如何塑造边疆地区的领土，社会和冲突。奇怪的是，河流确定了政治边界，但在其泛滥平原上却不可预测地发生了变化，造成了管辖权问题和国际主权问题。此外，政府操纵河流灌溉，改变河道如此剧烈，他们不再坚持他们理应划定的边界。本研究探讨了河流如何塑造景观的归属和排斥的社会分化的河流社区，其共同的边界转移时，河流转移。作为回应，这些社区结成联盟，并通过谈判解决彼此之间的冲突。博士生将评估社区如何受到当代水争议的不同影响，如干旱和河流恢复。调查结果将通过在区域网点出版的书面材料和一本可广泛获得的书传播给水管理人员、保护团体和公众。调查结果和口述历史访谈将被转换为数字叙事，以促进公众对过去河流使用和发展的当代遗产的辩论，并可作为课堂教学材料。结果将与相关社区分享。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目将为有前途的研究生提供支持，使其能够建立独立的研究事业。通过关注边界的物理表现，该项目将揭示权力如何通过河流来塑造不同社会社区的归属和排斥景观。整合环境史，政治生态学和边疆研究的思想，博士生将调查：（1）如何河流的水坝，运河和水库的形式发展和重新划分美国原住民和非洲裔美国人河流社区的领土边界;以及（2）这些社区如何通过联盟，反对，和内部分歧，以保持植根于一个日益管理的景观。 国家档案材料将展示河流的发展如何导致这些边界的转移，而当地的档案收藏和口述历史访谈将展示这些当地社区如何回应。 案例研究将集中在历史上被这条跨国、动态和重要的河流设定的不断变化的边界所分割的社区。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.