Unlikely Alliances in Rural-Urban Water Conflicts

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Kate Berry at University of Nevada, Reno, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating rural-urban water conflicts in the Western United States. As cities increasingly look to rural areas for water supplies, they are often met with staunch resistance. Yet, the dynamics of conflict and cooperation over rural-urban water transfers are not well understood. This research addresses this gap by examining resistance to two large rural-urban water transfers. In particular, it seeks to understand the dynamics of alliance and alignment among diverse Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors resisting these transfers. The project aims to contribute a more nuanced understanding of what are called unlikely alliances. More broadly, it seeks to advance understandings of the role of contestation and collective action in water governance.

Specifically, this project engages scholarship on unlikely alliances, hydrosocial territory, and territorial pluralism to answer three research questions. First, why and when are Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors finding strategic alliance or alignment over shared resistance to rural-to-urban water transfers? Second, how is alliance or alignment among diverse actors shaping and shaped by the way hydrosocial territories are constructed, mobilized, and contested in water transfer conflicts? Third, how do assertions of Indigenous governance and tribal sovereignty shape the ways actors navigate territorial pluralism as they ally or align in pursuit of water justice? To address these questions, the project employs qualitative methods in a comparative case study of two water transfer conflicts in the Great Basin region. Methods for data collection include interviews, archival research and document review, participant observation of meetings and events, and focus groups that will be used to discuss and gather feedback about preliminary findings. The results of the study will inform key water policy debates and provide insights for activists and organizations interested in building more diverse coalitions. By examining the diverse visions of hydrosocial territory asserted in rural-urban water conflicts, this research will contribute to scholarly understandings of how actors pursue water justice and build new water regimes.

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.