Luisa Cortesi
Biographic Data
| ID | 219475 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luisa Cortesi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luisa |
| FAMILY NAME | Cortesi |
| SIGNATURE | CORTESI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6548-0573 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 6 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
What is a river? J. Scott’s reverberations toward a new theory of waterland
This article poses a simple but deceptive question – what is a river – and, equally, what is it not. It starts from an interrogation of James C. Scott’s In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings, and proceeds by recasting river research as a form of concept mediation between the social and the environmental sciences. This requires exposing inherited cognitive biases and the damage they have caused. The ensuing clarification of…
Amphibious Anthropologies: Living in Wet Environments
Hydrotopias and waterland
Geoforum is a leading international, inter-disciplinary journal publishing innovative research and commentary in human geography and related fields. It is global in outlook and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy, through political ecology, national system…
An ontology of water and land in North Bihar, India★
The floodplain of the Himalayas is a land formed and destroyed incessantly by the water of its rivers. Measures intended for flood control, aimed at separating productive land from river water through earth levees, have instead worsened the inundations, disrupting the beneficial flow of soil through floodwaters, obstructing water drainage, and resulting in enormous waterlogged areas. This article proposes that the failure of flood control in Biha…
Environmental Anthropology
Environmental anthropologists have refined, challenged, and reconfigured the conceptual divide between human culture and nonhuman nature through multidisciplinary, cross‐cultural ethnographic inquiry. Problematizing the assumption that society is fundamentally separate from the biospheric realm, scholars have called attention to the various ways in which the physical environment shapes human culture and vice versa. This entry explores environment…
The muddy semiotics of mud
In North Bihar, mud ensures prosperity for farmers, but also materially signals the lower status from which their wives try to raise the family, even at the cost of risking their own and their children's lives. This article provides a semiotic analysis of mud, an ambiguous material in its physical combination of land and water, a substance with specific gendered and class dimensions, and a symbolic marker whose presence on bodies indexes their so…
Mainstreaming Morality: An Examination of Moral Ecologies as a Form of Resistance
In this article, we ask how considerations about moral (and immoral) ecologies have motivated and shaped ecological resistance movements. The concept of ‘moral ecologies’ involves expectations of reciprocal, just, and sustainable relations between society and environment, which we consider a central concern of environmental movements. We analyze the cultural, material, and political importance of moral ecologies as a form of resistance by examini…
An ontology of water and land in North Bihar, India★
The floodplain of the Himalayas is a land formed and destroyed incessantly by the water of its rivers. Measures intended for flood control, aimed at separating productive land from river water through earth levees, have instead worsened the inundations, disrupting the beneficial flow of soil through floodwaters, obstructing water drainage, and resulting in enormous waterlogged areas. This article proposes that the failure of flood control in Biha…
Hydrotopias and waterland
Geoforum is a leading international, inter-disciplinary journal publishing innovative research and commentary in human geography and related fields. It is global in outlook and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy, through political ecology, national system…
The muddy semiotics of mud
In North Bihar, mud ensures prosperity for farmers, but also materially signals the lower status from which their wives try to raise the family, even at the cost of risking their own and their children's lives. This article provides a semiotic analysis of mud, an ambiguous material in its physical combination of land and water, a substance with specific gendered and class dimensions, and a symbolic marker whose presence on bodies indexes their so…
Mainstreaming Morality: An Examination of Moral Ecologies as a Form of Resistance
In this article, we ask how considerations about moral (and immoral) ecologies have motivated and shaped ecological resistance movements. The concept of ‘moral ecologies’ involves expectations of reciprocal, just, and sustainable relations between society and environment, which we consider a central concern of environmental movements. We analyze the cultural, material, and political importance of moral ecologies as a form of resistance by examini…
Mainstreaming Morality: An Examination of Moral Ecologies as a Form of Resistance
In this article, we ask how considerations about moral (and immoral) ecologies have motivated and shaped ecological resistance movements. The concept of ‘moral ecologies’ involves expectations of reciprocal, just, and sustainable relations between society and environment, which we consider a central concern of environmental movements. We analyze the cultural, material, and political importance of moral ecologies as a form of resistance by examini…
Environmental Anthropology
Environmental anthropologists have refined, challenged, and reconfigured the conceptual divide between human culture and nonhuman nature through multidisciplinary, cross‐cultural ethnographic inquiry. Problematizing the assumption that society is fundamentally separate from the biospheric realm, scholars have called attention to the various ways in which the physical environment shapes human culture and vice versa. This entry explores environment…
The muddy semiotics of mud
In North Bihar, mud ensures prosperity for farmers, but also materially signals the lower status from which their wives try to raise the family, even at the cost of risking their own and their children's lives. This article provides a semiotic analysis of mud, an ambiguous material in its physical combination of land and water, a substance with specific gendered and class dimensions, and a symbolic marker whose presence on bodies indexes their so…
An ontology of water and land in North Bihar, India★
The floodplain of the Himalayas is a land formed and destroyed incessantly by the water of its rivers. Measures intended for flood control, aimed at separating productive land from river water through earth levees, have instead worsened the inundations, disrupting the beneficial flow of soil through floodwaters, obstructing water drainage, and resulting in enormous waterlogged areas. This article proposes that the failure of flood control in Biha…
Hydrotopias and waterland
Geoforum is a leading international, inter-disciplinary journal publishing innovative research and commentary in human geography and related fields. It is global in outlook and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy, through political ecology, national system…
Amphibious Anthropologies: Living in Wet Environments
What is a river? J. Scott’s reverberations toward a new theory of waterland
This article poses a simple but deceptive question – what is a river – and, equally, what is it not. It starts from an interrogation of James C. Scott’s In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings, and proceeds by recasting river research as a form of concept mediation between the social and the environmental sciences. This requires exposing inherited cognitive biases and the damage they have caused. The ensuing clarification of…
Geographies of human-animal interactions (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Politics (4 works) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (4 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Geography (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Sociology (3 works) · Cartography (2 works)