Aquifer Aporias
Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Groundwater Depletion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2229019 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucas Bessire (0009-0008-5369-0005, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 350-359 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/720280 |
| OpenAlex | W4281381566 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 97 |
This report extrapolates from prior research to propose a preliminary framework for approaching extreme groundwater depletion through anthropological analysis of what it terms aquifer aporias-the ecological manifestations of epistemic gaps about aquifer loss. Informed by two years of ethnographic research on aquifer depletion on the High Plains, the essay identifies how aporetic relationships among five overlapping epistemic modes drive extreme groundwater eradication across the Plains and other dry regions of the world. These modes include but are not limited to hydrogeological structures, economic rationalities, groundwater governance, technological remediation, and affective contours of belonging. The central argument is that planetary zones of depletion bear striking resemblances to each another in ways that allow and require comparative analysis. Grasping how extreme aquifer depletion coalesces as a general planetary phenomenon in turn requires bringing aporetic dynamics into a single analytic framework. Taking these mutually constitutive aporias seriously may also contribute to ongoing debates about the relationships of anthropological knowledge to the defining ecological crises of the contemporary
Anthropocene · Aquifer · Argument (complex analysis · Biology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Groundwater · Hydrogeology · Sociology · Anthropology · Geology · Groundwater and Isotope Geochemistry · Philosophy · Transboundary Water Resource Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure
Marxism and literature
Pipe Politics, Contested Waters
Nonsustainable groundwater sustaining irrigation
Global depletion of groundwater resources
Water balance of global aquifers revealed by groundwater footprint
The Struggle to Govern the Commons
Silencing the Past
Capitalism in the web of life
An Unintended Race
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Broken Heartland
Duress
Water insecurity
The Great Derangement
From desert to breadbasket…to desert again? A metabolic rift in the High Plains Aquifer
Impacts of 25 years of groundwater extraction on subsidence in the Mekong delta, Vietnam
Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014)
Irrigation aquifer depletion
Hydraulic city
Sustainable groundwater management
Thinking Relationships Through Water
The Great Artesian Basin
Structural impediments to sustainable groundwater management in the High Plains Aquifer of western Kansas
The violence of the green revolution
The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”
Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet
Acting in an uncertain world
Running Out
The hydrosocial cycle
Groundwater governmentality
The Social Production of Toxic Uncertainty
Being Human, Being Animal
Distinguished Lecture
Rubble
Wildfires at the Edges of Science
Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy
Another Politics of Life is Possible
Water Sustainability
The Anthropology of Mining
Risks of Citizenship and Fault Lines of Survival
Intersectional Ecologies
Groundwater Citizenship and Water Supply Awareness
Sustaining ignorance
The price of austerity
Water and the Commons Imaginary
The Climate of History
Yellow Water
The economic anthropology of water
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |