Swallowed by a Sinkhole on the Way to School

• In Event: Building a Sustainable Future Through an Understanding of Neoliberalism, Youth, Art, and Resistance

Abstract

In many parts of the world, lack of access to drinking water and sanitation services is acutely felt, with a glaring disparity between water usage in the South compared to the Northern hemisphere. In large part, the global water crisis is a result of grand-scale, destructive, industrial ‘innovations.’ Global water usage is doubling every 20 years, which is twice the rate of population growth Aggressive deforestation, aquifer depletion, and hydro diversion due to water-intensive enterprises such as industrial agriculture, mining, and high-tech industries; along with urbanization have released massive concentrations of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, thus significantly contributing to global warming. Consequences of this have been extreme weather occurrences such as sinkholes, floods, and droughts; unpredictable and exotic pathogens and pests, and the overall desertification of the planet. Such destructive forces have also resulted in jarring disruptions in the hydrologic cycle, with a specific byproduct being the rapid disappearance of worldwide fresh water sources. Not only does this have severe ramifications for drinking water access, but the depletion of groundwater has made it much more difficult to grow food. Because of such combined practices/forces, the dwindling surface water that is available is highly polluted. This water is increasingly contaminated with the by-products of industry and construction, including raw sewage, insecticides, PCPs, hormones, nitrogen fertilizers, antibiotics, and other industrial and chemical affluent. Against this backdrop, aided by the UN/IMF/World Bank, remaining freshwater sources are being drained and transformed from a human right into a commodity to be sold on the global marketplace in the form of bottled water and utility service contracts.
Given the global water crisis, the focus of this presentation is on the transnational water utility service industry and schooling. I first discuss the very different ways the transnational water utility service industry enters communities in the South compared to the Northern hemisphere. I then consider the particular strategies these conglomerates use to seep into cities and towns in the North, including in the US. Emphasis is placed on how the water utility service sector is involved in schooling through sponsoring curricular materials and activities. I also provide initial analysis of the messages distributed in a sample of such materials and activities intended for K-12 public school students. Findings indicate there is an attempt to impart uncritical, ‘positive’ knowledge of such practices. While literature exists that explores curricular materials in schools provided by transnational corporations directly involved in control of natural resources, surprisingly, the privatization of the world's water resources receives little attention. When it is discussed, it is typically portrayed as a local concern, for example, as a seasonal draught or flood, a ‘bizarre’ sinkhole, a result of individual ‘waste,’ and not as a systemic, global problem rooted in neoliberal productivity.

Author

• Julia Hall, D'Youville College