Acequia Culture

Acequia Culture
Author: José A. Rivera
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2005-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0826327206


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Conflicts between Hispanic farmers and developers made for compelling reading in The Milagro Beanfield War, the famous novel of life in a northern New Mexico village in which tradition triumphs over modernity. But as cities grow and industries expand, are acequias, or community irrigation ditches, a wise and efficient use of water in the arid Southwest? José Rivera presents the contemporary case for the value of acequias and the communities they nurture in the river valleys of southern Colorado and New Mexico. Recognizing that "water is the lifeblood of the community," Rivera delineates an acequia culture based on a reciprocal relationship between irrigation and community. The acequia experience grows out of a conservation ethic and a tradition of sharing that should be recognized and preserved in an age of increasing competition for scarce water resources. "A worthwhile contribution to the future management of water resources."--Professor Michael C. Meyer

Acequia Culture

Acequia Culture
Author: José A. Rivera
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1998
Genre: Land use
ISBN: 0826318592


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Lays out the contemporary legal and administrative status of these ancient irrigation institutions, suggesting public policy measures to keep the system alive.

Water for the People

Water for the People
Author: Enrique R. Lamadrid
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2023
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826364632


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"Water for the People: The Acequia Heritage of New Mexico in a Global Context is a new anthology of essays by world-renowned acequia scholars and community members that situates New Mexico's acequia heritage and its inherent sustainable design within a global framework. Initially inspired by two special issues of the Green Fire Times (GFT) that centered on New Mexico's rich acequia traditions, Water for the People features twenty-five essays (including the Epilogue) highlighting acequia culture, use, and history in New Mexico and northern Mexico complemented by accompanying articles that focus on acequias in Chile and Peru, Spain, the Middle East, Nepal, and the Philippines. A hybrid Iberian model of irrigation melded with irrigated agricultural practices already existing in the Americas in places like Peru, Mesoamerica, and the high-altitude deserts of northern New Spain inhabited by Puebloan peoples that is now the American Southwest. In the case of the upper Rio Grande, the lush landscapes created by acequias in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries and later continue to feed their communities today despite threats of economic modernity, urbanization, private water markets, and conditions of extreme water scarcity due to cycles of prolonged drought and the emerging impacts of climate change. Water for the People demonstrates through a series of connected essays how the acequia in New Mexico is part of an agricultural web of creative irrigation works that stretches from Valencia, Spain, to the Middle East, Mexico, the Philippines, Argentina, and elsewhere. This volume celebrates acequia practices and traditions worldwide and shows how these ancient irrigation systems continue to provide arid regions a model for water governance, sustainable food systems, and in the case of New Mexico, community traditions that year after year reaffirms a deep cultural and spiritual relationship with the land. Ditch-irrigation systems have stood as the backbone of New Mexican landscape and garden construction for over four centuries. Acequias offer a proven and elegant answer to these everlasting questions: How do you provide consistent water so that a garden, field, or pasture will thrive? And how do you do so in a place that is known for its droughts, heat, thin soils, remarkably small streams and springs, and other scarce agricultural resources? Existing literature on acequias include technical and historical studies, ethnographies, and even memoir, but none has the global scope of this anthology"--

Acequia

Acequia
Author: Sylvia Rodríguez
Publisher:
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006
Genre: Nature
ISBN:


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Every society must have a system for capturing, storing, and distributing water, a system encompassing both technology and a rationale for the division of this finite resource. Today, people around the world face severe and growing water scarcity, and everywhere this vital resource is ceasing to be a right and becoming a commodity. The acequia or irrigation ditch associations of Taos, Río Arriba, Mora, and other northern New Mexico counties offer an alternative. Few northern New Mexicans farm for a living anymore, but many still gather to clean the ditches each spring and irrigate fields and gardens with the water that runs through them. Increasingly, ditch associations also go to court to defend their water rights against the competing claims brought by population growth, urbanization, and industrial or resort development. Their insistence on the traditional "sharing of waters" offers a solution to the current worldwide water crisis.

Fluid Geographies

Fluid Geographies
Author: K. Maria D. Lane
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2024-07-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 022629496X


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An unprecedented analysis of the origin story of New Mexico’s modern water management system. Maria Lane’s Fluid Geographies traces New Mexico’s transition from a community-based to an expert-led system of water management during the pre-statehood era. To understand this major shift, Lane carefully examines the primary conflict of the time, which pitted Indigenous and Nuevomexicano communities, with their long-established systems of irrigation management, against Anglo-American settlers, who benefitted from centralized bureaucratic management of water. The newcomers’ system eventually became settled law, but water disputes have continued throughout the district courts of New Mexico’s Rio Grande watershed ever since. Using a fine-grained analysis of legislative texts and nearly two hundred district court cases, Lane analyzes evolving cultural patterns and attitudes toward water use and management in a pivotal time in New Mexico’s history. Illuminating complex themes for a general audience, Fluid Geographies helps readers understand how settler colonialism constructed a racialized understanding of scientific expertise and legitimized the dispossession of nonwhite communities in New Mexico.

Water for the People

Water for the People
Author: Enrique R. Lamadrid
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2023-04-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0826364640


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Water for the People features twenty-five essays by world-renowned acequia scholars and community members that highlight acequia culture, use, and history in New Mexico, northern Mexico, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Spain, the Middle East, Nepal, and the Philippines, situating New Mexico’s acequia heritage and its inherent sustainable design within a global framework. The lush landscapes of the upper Río Grande watershed created by acequias dating from as far back as the late sixteenth century continue to irrigate their communities today despite threats of prolonged drought, urbanization, private water markets, extreme water scarcity, and climate change. Water for the People celebrates acequia practices and traditions worldwide and shows how these ancient irrigation systems continue to provide arid regions with a model for water governance, sustainable food systems, and community traditions that reaffirm a deep cultural and spiritual relationship with the land year after year.

Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics

Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics
Author: Devon Gerardo Pena
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1998
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816518739


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Until recently, mainstream American environmentalism has been a predominantly white, middle-class movement, essentially ignoring the class, race, and gender dimensions of environmental politics. In this provocative collection of original essays, the environmental dimensions of the Chicana/o experience are explicitly expressed and debated. Employing a variety of genres ranging from poetry to autobiography to theoretical and empirical essays, the voices in this collection speak to the most significant issues of environmentalism and social justice, recognizing throughout the need for a pluralism of Chicana/o philosophies. The contributors provide an excellent basis for understanding how multiple Chicana/o views on the environment play out in the context of dominant social, political and economic views. Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics examines a number of Chicana/o ecological perspectives. How can the ethics of reciprocity present in Chicana/o agropastoral life be protected and applied on a broader scale? How can the dominant society, whose economic structure is invested in "placeless mobility," take note of the harm caused to land-based cultures, take responsibility for it, and take heed before it is too late? Will the larger society be "ecologically housebroken" before it destroys its home? Grounded in actual political struggles waged by Chicana/o communities over issues of environmental destruction, cultural genocide, and socioeconomic domination, this volume provides an important series of snapshots of Chicana/o history. Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics illuminates the bridges that existÑand must be understoodÑbetween race, ethnicity, class, gender, politics, and ecology. CONTENTS Part 1: IndoHispano Land Ethics Los Animalitos: Culture, Ecology, and the Politics of Place in the Upper RÁo Grande, Devon G. Pe–a Social Action Research, Bioregionalism, and the Upper R’o Grande, RubŽn O. Mart’nez Notes on (Home)Land Ethics: Ideas, Values, and the Land, Reyes Garc’a Part 2: Environmental History and Ecological Politics Ecological Legitimacy and Cultural Essentialism: Hispano Grazing in Northern New Mexico, Laura Pulido The Capitalist Tool, the Lawless, and the Violent: A Critique of Recent Southwestern Environmental History, Devon G. Pe–a and RubŽn O. Mart’nez Ecofeminism and Chicano Environmental Struggles: Bridges across Gender and Race, Gwyn Kirk Philosophy Meets Practice: A Critique of Ecofeminism through the Voices of Three Chicana Activists, Malia Davis Part 3: Alternatives to Destruction The Pasture Poacher (a poem), Joseph C. Gallegos Acequia Tales: Stories from a Chicano Centennial Farm, Joseph C. Gallegos A Gold Mine, an Orchard, and an Eleventh Commandment, Devon G. Pe–a

Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics

Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics
Author: Devon G. Peña
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 1999-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816543860


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Until recently, mainstream American environmentalism has been a predominantly white, middle-class movement, essentially ignoring the class, race, and gender dimensions of environmental politics. In this provocative collection of original essays, the environmental dimensions of the Chicana/o experience are explicitly expressed and debated. Employing a variety of genres ranging from poetry to autobiography to theoretical and empirical essays, the voices in this collection speak to the most significant issues of environmentalism and social justice, recognizing throughout the need for a pluralism of Chicana/o philosophies. The contributors provide an excellent basis for understanding how multiple Chicana/o views on the environment play out in the context of dominant social, political and economic views. Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics examines a number of Chicana/o ecological perspectives. How can the ethics of reciprocity present in Chicana/o agropastoral life be protected and applied on a broader scale? How can the dominant society, whose economic structure is invested in "placeless mobility," take note of the harm caused to land-based cultures, take responsibility for it, and take heed before it is too late? Will the larger society be "ecologically housebroken" before it destroys its home? Grounded in actual political struggles waged by Chicana/o communities over issues of environmental destruction, cultural genocide, and socioeconomic domination, this volume provides an important series of snapshots of Chicana/o history. Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics illuminates the bridges that exist—and must be understood—between race, ethnicity, class, gender, politics, and ecology. CONTENTS Part 1: IndoHispano Land Ethics Los Animalitos: Culture, Ecology, and the Politics of Place in the Upper R¡o Grande, Devon G. Peña Social Action Research, Bioregionalism, and the Upper Río Grande, Rubén O. Martínez Notes on (Home)Land Ethics: Ideas, Values, and the Land, Reyes García Part 2: Environmental History and Ecological Politics Ecological Legitimacy and Cultural Essentialism: Hispano Grazing in Northern New Mexico, Laura Pulido The Capitalist Tool, the Lawless, and the Violent: A Critique of Recent Southwestern Environmental History, Devon G. Peña and Rubén O. Martínez Ecofeminism and Chicano Environmental Struggles: Bridges across Gender and Race, Gwyn Kirk Philosophy Meets Practice: A Critique of Ecofeminism through the Voices of Three Chicana Activists, Malia Davis Part 3: Alternatives to Destruction The Pasture Poacher (a poem), Joseph C. Gallegos Acequia Tales: Stories from a Chicano Centennial Farm, Joseph C. Gallegos A Gold Mine, an Orchard, and an Eleventh Commandment, Devon G. Peña

Imagine a City That Remembers

Imagine a City That Remembers
Author: Anthony Anella
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 0826359787


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Imagine a City That Remembers grew out of a series of articles and photographs published in the Albuquerque Tribune in 1998 and 1999. This expanded and updated collection revisits Albuquerque nearly twenty years after the original articles were written. It juxtaposes historic and contemporary photographs of Albuquerque to show diverse moments in the city’s history and development. The authors, ardent defenders of the vitality of Albuquerque’s past, contend that the city is still small enough to be in touch with its history and argue that what makes Albuquerque a great place is the continued presence of its strong traditions. They further believe that preserving Albuquerque’s natural and cultural heritage is critical to the city’s future. Throughout, both express a deep understanding for this complicated, beautiful, and often misunderstood place.