Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Nat07


has 1 film 1
Water, land, and power in the twentieth century: environmental and economic history lenses 
Convenors:
Sarah Elkind (San Diego State University)
Melanie Kiechle (Virginia Tech)
Send message to Convenors
Chair:
Sarah Elkind (San Diego State University)
Formats:
Roundtable
Streams:
Nature for Harvest: Commodities and Resources
Location:
Linnanmaa Campus, TA101
Sessions:
Monday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki

Short Abstract:

Land and water are building blocks of economies and environments, but also communities, nation-states, empires, at many scales of power. This round table will discuss the transformations of land and water around the world, at the intersections of environmental, economic and political history.

Long Abstract:

This session brings together economic and environmental historians to discuss land and water at the intersections of state power, capitalism and environmental transformation. Our goal is also a conversation about environmental and economic history methodologies and transdiciplinary perspectives.

We envision a roundtable conversation that considers how state and non-state actors used technology, administrative bodies, public policy, economic reasoning, and violence to transform land and water, and how the transformation of land- and water-scapes alters political, social, and economic systems.

The co-conveners compare specific case studies of agrarian reform, environmental change, and economic development in the 20th century in four countries and three continents. A case study from British India explores the relationship between engineering and economic imaginaries, and the conflict between colonial extraction and older systems of agricultural property. This conflict between the State and rural communities lies at the heart of the story of high dam construction in southeastern Anatolia. Economic development for Turkey's eastern cities - hydropower construction -- was used as a tool of social engineering and dispossession in Anatolia. The U.S. example explores the application of economic reasoning to resolve urban-rural tensions in the United States; this laid bare the social consequences of development spending, and made explicit the politics of power. The final case examines proposals to redistribute land in Uruguay, the failure of which demonstrated the power within and beyond the State, and an opportunity use environmental history methodologies to rethink the ways economic history treats natural resources.

Accepted contributions:

Session 1 Monday 19 August, 2024, -
Roundtable Video visible to paid-up delegates