ROHATYN CENTER FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS
First Annual International Conference
March 14-16, 2013

The Politics of Freshwater: Access and Identity in a Changing Environment

Conference Program

Thursday, March 14

4:30 pm: Co-Programming Event with Mahaney Center for the Arts; Dana Auditorium
Edward Burtynsky, Artist, speaking about Nature Transformed, currently featured at the Mahaney Center for the Arts.

6:30-8:00 pm: Opening Session; Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Faculty Moderator: Michael Sheridan, Sociology and Anthropology
Student Chair: Gillian Lui ’13

Presenters:
Tamar Mayer, Middlebury College – Opening Remarks

William J. Cosgrove, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – An Equitable and Sustainable Water Future 

Frank Magilligan, Dartmouth College – The Era of Big Dam Building: It ain’t over till it’s over

Friday, March 15

12:15-2:30 pm:  Water Divided, Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Faculty Moderator: Robert Greeley, Arabic
Student Chair: Jaehyuk (Jeff) Lee ’13

Presenters:
Pushpa Iyer, Monterey Institute of International Studies – The Politics of Muddled Waters in Gujarat, India: Environmental, economic, social, and cultural influences 

T. S. McMillin, Oberlin College – When Is A River Not A River? Strange waters in the Los Angeles Basin

Maria Alessandra Woolson, Middlebury College – Rapa Nui and Canary Islands: A political ecology approach to understanding water governance

2:45-4:15 pm: Changing Water and Land Use; Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Faculty Moderator: Ilaria Brancoli Busdraghi, Italian
Student Chair: Adrian Leong ’16

Presenters:
Jessica K. Graybill, Colgate University – Resource Mobility and Flow in, through, and out of the Russian Far East: Understanding socionatural systems in multi-harvest resource spaces

Pinar Keskin, Wellesley College, and Richard Hornbeck, Harvard University – The Historically Evolving Impact of the Ogallala Aquifer: Agricultural adaptation to groundwater and drought

Michael Vincent McGinnis, Monterey Institute of International Studies – Creating Ecological Scarcity: The struggle to sustain New Zealand’s water, watersheds and pastoral heritage

4:30-6:00 pm: Water Territories; Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Faculty Moderator: Dan Brayton, English and American Literatures
Student Chair: Olivia Noble ’13

Presenters:
Samer Alatout, University of Wisconsin-Madison – Water, Occupation, and the Viability of the Two State Option in Historic Palestine

Chris Sneddon and Coleen Fox, Dartmouth College – The New Politics of Mekong Hydro-Development

Eve Vogel, University of Massachusetts, Amherst – The Long-Term Consequences of Trans-Jurisdictional River Basin Governance: Anti-democratic unity, fragmentation and failure, or parceling out the watershed

Saturday, March 16

9:00-10:30 am: Sustaining Multiple Uses of Water; Robert A. Jones ’59 House
(over continental breakfast)
Faculty Moderator: Robert Prasch, Economics
Student Chair: Nate Goldstone ’13

Presenters:

Francisco Páez de la Cadena, Universidad de La Rioja, Spain – Can Gardens Teach Us How to Better Use Water?

Lina Abu-Ghunmi, Diana Abu-Ghunmi and Mariska Ronteltap, University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan – Grey Water Concept Toward Mitigating Water Shortage

Catherine M. Ashcraft, Middlebury College – Managing Conflict in International River Basins: The Danube and the Nile Rivers

10:45 am – 12:15 pm: Access to Water and Resistance; Robert A. Jones ’59 House
Faculty Moderator: Kacy McKinney, Geography
Student Chair: Morris Swaby Ebanks ’13

Presenters:
Cynthia Bannon, Indiana University, Bloomington – Ancient Roman Water Rights and Commons Theory

Marcos F. Lopez, Middlebury College – The Power of Water: Industrial agriculture, resource inequities and indigenous farm worker resistance

Daniel Ryan and Andres Napoli, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Argentina – Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Water Pollution: The case of the Matanza – Riachuelo basin in Argentina

12:30-2:00 pm: Summary and Discussion; Robert A. Jones ’59 House

Concluding remarks by Cat Ashcraft and Claire Lewandowski ’13

 

 

 

Co-sponsors: Christian A. Johnson Economics Fund, C. V. Starr Middlebury Schools Abroad, Program in Environmental Studies, Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest,

Departments of English and American Literatures, Classics, Geography and Political Science, and the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs.