The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American SouthwestNearly fifty years ago, the Bureau of Reclamation proposed building a dam at the confluence of two rivers in Central Arizona. While the dam would bring valuable water to this arid plain, it would also destroy a wildlife habitat, flood archaeological sites, and force the Yavapai Indians off their ancestral home. The Struggle for Water is not only the fascinating story of this controversial and ultimately thwarted public works project but also a study of rationality as a cultural, organizational, and political construct. In the 1970s, the three groups most intimately involved in the Orme Dam—younger Bureau of Reclamation employees committed to "rational choice" decision making, older Bureau engineers committed to the dam, and the Yavapai community—all found themselves and their values transformed by their struggles. Wendy Nelson Espeland lays bare the relations between interests and identities that emerged during the conflict, creating a contemporary tale of power and colonization, bureaucracies and democratic practice, that asks the crucial question of what it means to be "rational." |
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The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American ... Wendy Nelson Espeland No preview available - 1998 |
The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American ... Wendy Nelson Espeland No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
action agency alternative analysis argued Arizona authority became become believed build bureau bureaucrats CAWCS Central Arizona Colorado commensuration commitment construction costs courts create cultural decision defined described designed distinctive documents early economic effects efforts employees engineers environmental evaluate example experience explain expressed federal finally flood forced forms goals groups hard identity impacts important incommensurable Indian interests invested involved irrigation land less lives managers McDowell means models nature needed NEPA offer Old Guard organization organizational Orme Dam participants political preferences Press problem procedures rational choice rational choice theory reason Reclamation relation represented reservation residents response result River shaped social sometimes structure substantive supporters symbolic theory things tion understanding University values Weber West Yavapai