Doctoral Dissertation Research: Indigenous Rights, Government Authority, and Stakeholder Alliances in Rural-Urban Water Conflicts

This doctoral dissertation project will examine how public, private, and tribal interests are considered and reconciled in the wake of large rural-to-urban water transfers. The doctoral student will evaluate the decision-making process about an emblematic water transfer by evaluating more than a century of social, regulatory, and environmental change. During this time-period, the public, private, and tribal interests considered by decision-makers have themselves changed amid drastic shifts in federal Indian policy, expanding public interest in environmental protection, and emerging coalitions of unlikely allies. Illustrating how natural resources policy intersects with federal Indian policy in practice, the research results will be summarized in policy briefs for government agencies that navigate that intersection when making decisions about land and water management. Educational and outreach tools will be developed to raise awareness about indigenous histories and perspectives that have often been overlooked and marginalized in water policy debates. Research findings will be disseminated to broader audiences through publication in popular media outlets and distribution of teaching resources. This project will support the training of a female doctoral student.

Integrated qualitative methods (ethnography, legal, and archival) will be used to capture the multifaceted processes that shape decision-making about large water transfers: legal and policy research to establish the relevant laws and policies on the books; archival research and agency interviews to elucidate the rationales guiding decisions in light of those policies; and participant observation and stakeholder interviews to examine how those decisions are implemented, received, and reshaped on the ground. Focused on decision-making about the transfer of water from Owens Valley to Los Angeles, California dating back to the early 1900s, this research will examine (1) how urban control over rural land and water resources is asserted, maintained, and justified over time; (2) how federal actions on behalf of the public interest intersect with the federal government's obligations as trustee for tribal interests; and (3) how indigenous struggles for water, land, and sovereignty articulate with the efforts of other rural actors challenging urban resource control and its impacts. In addition to illustrating how conflicting interests and obligations are weighed in decision-making about large water transfers, this project will offer insight into how indigenous and rural communities are working to reshape the frameworks, values, and objectives underpinning those decisions. The research will advance theoretical work in legal geography and public policy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.