Colonial Infrastructures: “The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam”, “Carbon Sovereignty”, and theorizing relations with the Colorado River

Session Submission Type: Alternative Session

Abstract

The Colorado River is in crisis. Contemporary news accounts portray a drying river in an increasingly arid region. A prolonged summer heatwave across the Colorado Basin has exceeded previous record-setting temperatures. Climate change, and its associated weather impacts, are projected as the unifying source of our environmental problems in the broader basin and beyond. But two recent books challenge this modern narrative: Erika Bsumek’s "The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau" (2023) and Andrew Curley’s "Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation" (2023) confront the long durée of environmental governance in the Indigenous Southwest as a consequence of settler colonial development and infrastructure. Together the books present the environmental histories of two large-scale projects, the Glen Canyon Dam (hydroelectric dam) and the Navajo Generating Station (demolished coal-fired power plant) near Page, Arizona. These distinct projects in overlapping geographies speak to differential relationships with the river through settler visions of environmental domination organized around the tenets of Mormonism and modern engineering. In this authors-meets-critics session, panelists Angela Parker, Farina King, and Teresa Montoya establish common themes between the two books from their respective disciplines of History, Native Studies, and Anthropology and query what this interdisciplinary approach might offer Environmental History. Authors Andrew Curley and Erika Bsumek offer response commentary to consider the broader implications of thinking through the temporalities of climate crisis within the history of colonial infrastructures.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Participants

• Erika Bsumek, University of Texas Austin

• Andrew Curley, University of Arizona

Discussants

• Farina King, University of Oklahoma

• Angela Parker, University of Denver

Moderator

• Teresa Montoya, University of Chicago