The Making of White Water Citizens in Australia and the Western United States: Racialization as a Transnational Project of Irrigation Governance

Abstract

This article examines the role of settler irrigation systems and water governance in establishing and reinforcing tenacious imperial geographies of whiteness. Through an analysis of the lives and work of two powerful men who made foundational contributions to establishing irrigation economies and water governance systems in Australia and the Western United States, we investigate the racialized sociospatial processes that bound whiteness to water. Alfred Deakin (1856–1919) and Elwood Mead (1858–1936) were men of science, technology, and politics who actively circulated in and shaped transnational flows of knowledge about whiteness and racial hierarchies. As Deakin and Mead vigorously promoted particular social and political systems associated with irrigation, steering water flows toward uses regarded as modern and productive according to taken-for-granted norms, they imagined, naturalized, and privileged a white water citizenry. In the process, they contributed to the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples as well as marginalizing Other water users, most notably Asian migrants. These men's hydro-imaginaries, which were endorsed and enacted by their respective governments, served to motivate a form of state protection of family farms, inculcate civic self-reliance and local organization, and establish the white water citizen, a baseline against which others were expected to conform. By examining the making of white water citizens, we hope to contribute to Indigenous geographies and studies of racialization in rural places, as well as the effects of irrigation in settler nations.

本文检视迁佔灌溉系统与水治理在建立并深化白人性的顽固殖民地理中扮演的角色。我们透过分析澳大利亚与美国西部两位握有权势并对建立灌溉经济与水治理系统作出重大贡献的男性的生活与工作, 探讨将白人性与水结合的种族化社会空间过程。艾尔弗雷德．迪金 (1856–1919) 和埃尔伍德．迈德 (1858–1963) 是科学家、技师与政治家, 并积极地流通和形塑有关白人性与种族阶层的跨国知识流。当迪金与迈德强力提倡与灌溉有关的特定社会及政治系统, 将水导向被视为理所当然的常规中认为现代且具生产性的使用者时, 他们想像、自然化、并偏好白人的水资源公民权。他们在此般过程中, 导致对原住民的侵占与迫迁, 以及边缘化主要是亚洲移民的其他水资源使用者。这两位男性的水想像, 由他们各自的政府所支持并推进, 作为促动国家保护家庭农场的形式, 灌输了公民自给自足和地方组织, 并建立了白人性的水资源公民——个他人被期待遵守的基线。藉由检视白人水资源公民的打造, 我们希望对原住民地理和乡村地区的种族化研究, 以及灌溉在迁佔国家中的影响作出贡献。

Este artículo examina el papel de los sistemas de irrigación de colonos y la gobernanza del agua en el proceso de establecer y reforzar las tenaces geografías imperiales de lo blanco. Mediante un análisis de las vidas y trabajo de dos hombres poderosos que hicieron contribuciones fundacionales para establecer economías de irrigación y sistemas de gobernanza del agua en Australia y los Estados Unidos occidentales, investigamos los procesos socioespaciales racializados que conectan a lo blanco con el agua. Alfred Deakin (1856–1919) y Elwood Mead (1858–1936) fueron hombres de ciencia, tecnología y política que activamente configuraron los flujos transnacionales de conocimiento acerca de lo blanco y las jerarquías raciales, y los promovieron. A medida que Deakin y Mead impulsaban vigorosamente sistemas políticos y sociales particulares asociados con la irrigación, direccionando los flujos del agua hacia usos considerados como modernos y productivos, de acuerdo con normas sobreentendidas, ellos imaginaron, naturalizaron y privilegiaron una ciudadanía blanca del agua. En ese proceso, ellos contribuyeron a la desposesión y al desplazamiento de pueblos indígenas y de otros usuarios de agua marginados, más notablemente migrantes asiáticos. Estos hidro-imaginarios, que fueron respaldados y aprobados por sus respectivos gobiernos, sirvieron para motivar cierta forma de protección estatal de granjas familiares, inculcar independencia cívica y organización local, y establecer un ciudadano del agua blanco, como punto de referencia frente al cual se esperaba la conformidad de los demás. Al examinar la formalización de los ciudadanos del agua blancos, esperamos contribuir a las geografías indígenas y a los estudios de racialización en las localidades rurales, lo mismo que los efectos de la irrigación en las naciones de pobladores.

Key Words:

• Alfred Deakin
• Elwood Mead
• Indigenous water rights
• water governance
• whiteness

关键词：:

• 艾尔弗雷德．迪金
• 埃尔伍德．迈德
• 原住民水权
• 水治理
• 白人性。

Palabras clave:

• Alfred Deakin y Elwood Mead
• derechos indígenas al agua
• gobernanza del agua
• blancura

Acknowledgments

We appreciate our institutions for their support of this project (the University of Nevada, Reno and Griffith University), as well as that provided to Sue Jackson from the Australian Research Council (Project FT130101145). We are grateful for the assistance of librarians and use of archival materials at the American Heritage Center at University of Wyoming, Water Resource Archives at the University of California, Riverside, and the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The constructive comments of the anonymous reviewers helped us to refine our argument and we also acknowledge the contributions of Tony McLeod, Teresa Cavazos Cohn, and Leslie Head.

Notes

1. Water governance is defined as the processes, institutions, and practices involved in harnessing, measuring, controlling, regulating, transporting, and utilizing water for irrigation.

2. Settler colonialism involves “the permanent occupation of a territory and removal of indigenous peoples with the express purpose of building an ethnically distinct national community” (Bonds and Inwood 2015, 2).

3. Men dominated the fields of irrigation, water management, and agriculture.

4. Deakin was appointed to the Aboriginal Protection Board the year before he became Victorian Commissioner for Public Works and Water Supply.

5. For example, we have found no record of Mead's opinion or any actions in response to the foundational 1908 Winters case that established the parameters for reserved water rights for tribes.

Additional information

Funding

Sue Jackson was supported by the Australian Research Council's Future Fellowships Program funding scheme (project number FT130101145).

Notes on contributors

Kate A. Berry

KATE A. BERRY is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV 89557. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the analysis of water law and intergovernmental relations in water conflicts, cultural politics of water, Indigenous geographies, and identity studies.

Sue Jackson

SUE JACKSON is a Professor at the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland 0411, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. She is also an Honorary Fellow in the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include environmental governance, particularly systems of water governance, customary Indigenous resource rights, and nature–society relations.