UNM graduate student Sam Markwell explores the political, economic and cultural conditions in which the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) was established. Markwell focuses on how it has affected pueblo and acequia communities and their claims to water rights within the larger context of change shaping the twentieth century.
This lecture explores how the "Conservancy Project" became and remained the MGCSD through the long and ongoing processes of negotiation, contestation and incorporation among rural and urban communities, financial institutions, municipalities and state and federal government agencies.
Markwell is a graduate of the UNM School of Anthropology and is expanding on work he did during his time as an undergraduate. Currently his studies focus on the cultural politics of water in the South Valley area of Albuquerque with a special interest in environmental justice.
The lecture was cosponsored by the Office of the State Historian Scholars Program, the Historical Society of New Mexico and the Center for Southwest Research.
Listen to the talk
Runs: 39:16