The cultural politics of water in the Everglades and beyond (The 2015 Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture)

Abstract

“Getting the Water Right” is the motto of Everglades restoration, which is among the world’s largest and costliest ecosystem restoration projects. In Florida and globally, getting the water right is as much a social and cultural project as it is scientific or political. In this 2015 Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture, Jessica Cattelino builds from ethnographic research in the Everglades to explore the cultural politics of water. Examining how Everglades residents—including Seminole and non-Seminole farmers and ranchers, water managers, and environmentalists—value water, she considers the distinctive forms that nature takes in settler colonial societies like the United States. In the United States, nature and indigeneity are co-produced with uneven effects. Only by unsettling the non-analogical processes that link indigeneity with nature can we “get the water right” in the Everglades and beyond.

Watch the Lecture Here: http://haujournal.org/haunet/cattelino.php