A Water-Centered Perspective on Latin America and the Caribbean
Thursday, February 23 – Friday, February 24, 2023
Eastwoods Room, Texas Union Building – UNB 2.102
Thursday, February 23
9:00 AM
OPENING REMARKS
Adela Pineda Franco, Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS)
Carlos Ramos-Scharrón, Associate Professor, Department of Geography & the Environment / LLILAS
9:15 – 10:30 AM
PANEL 1 – WATER IN PREHISTORY
Stories of Ancient Resilience in the Maya Lowlands: Ancient Maya Water Landscapes
Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Professor of Geography & the Environment, UT Austin
Wetlands as Domesticated Landscapes: Pre-Columbian Water Management in the Bolivian Amazon
Clark Erickson, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Moderators: William Pratt, PhD Student, Geography & the Environment; and Lara Sánchez Morales, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, Anthropology, UT Austin
10:30 AM – COFFEE BREAK
10:45 – 11:50 AM
PANEL 2 – WATER IN COLONIAL TIMES
Colonial Landscapes: A Public History of the Bogotá Savannah
Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez, Assistant Professor of History, UT Austin
Water and Inequality in Colonial Rio de Janeiro
Alida Metcalf, Professor of History, Rice University
Moderators: Cindia Arango López, PhD Student, LLILAS; and William E. Doolittle, Professor Emeritus of Geography & the Environment
12:00 – 1:00 PM
KEYNOTE ADDRESS – MABEL MORAÑA
The Politics and Epistemology of Water: Notes on the Hydro-critical Approach
Mabel Moraña, Professor of Spanish, Program Director of Latin American Studies, William H. Gass Professor in Arts and Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
Moderator: Adela Pineda Franco, LLILAS Director, Professor of Spanish & Portuguese, UT Austin
1:00 PM – BREAK
2:15 – 3:30 PM
PANEL 3 – WATER IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Lake Gatun and the Panama Canal: A History of Myths, Metaphors, and Depopulation
Marixa Lasso, Historian and Executive Director, Centro de Investigaciones Históricas Antropológicas y Culturales, Panama
Bolivia’s Water Wars: A Century of Struggle
Sarah Hines, Assistant Professor of History, University of Oklahoma
Moderator: C.J. Alvarez, Associate Professor of Mexican American & Latina/o Studies and History; Megan Raby, Associate Professor of History, UT Austin
3:30 PM – COFFEE BREAK
3:45 –4:50 PM
PANEL 4 – TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CHALLENGES
Managing Water along the U.S.–Mexico Border
Maria-Elena Giner, Commissioner, International Boundary and Water Commission
Transboundary Waters across the U.S. and Mexico, and What They Mean for International Cooperation
Rosario Sánchez, Senior Research Scientist, Texas Water Resources Institute
Moderators: David Eaton, Professor of Natural Resource Policy Studies, LBJ School of Public Affairs; and Miriam Solis, Assistant Professor, Community & Regional Planning, School of Architecture, UT Austin
5:00 PM
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Institutional Arrangements for Water and Sanitation in Brazil: From State-centric Models to Neoliberal Reform to What?
Léo Heller, Researcher, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz; Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water and Sanitation
Moderators: Carlos Ramos-Scharrón, Associate Professor of Geography & the Environment / LLILAS; and Luciana Barreto-Lemos, PhD Student, LLILAS, UT Austin
Friday, February 24
9:00 – 10:30 AM
PANEL 5 – NOVEL WATERSCAPES
Glacier Loss and Evolving Hydro-Social Realities in the Tropical Andes
Bryan Mark, Professor of Geography, University of Ohio; State Climatologist of Ohio
Scarcity and Solutions: Perspectives from Chile and México on the Governance of Water Scarcity
Charles Wight, PhD Student, Oxford University
Coral Reef Degradation in the Caribbean and the Links to Decreasing Water Quality
Lorenzo Álvarez-Filip, Researcher, Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, UNAM Puerto Morelos
Moderators: Kenneth Young, Professor of Geography & the Environment, and Simon Brandl, Assistant Professor of Marine Science, UT Austin
10:30 AM – COFFEE BREAK
10:45 AM – 12:00 PM
PANEL 6 – PEOPLE’S DISPLACEMENT BY WATER
Migración venezolana a través del mar. De “balseros del aire” a náufragos en el Caribe
Luz Mely Reyes, Journalist and Co-Founder, Efecto Cocuyo
Chronicles of the Liquid Highway: When the Sea Is My Land
Scherezade García-Vázquez, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History, UT Austin
Moderators: Yenibel Ruiz Mirabal, PhD Student, Spanish & Portuguese; and Pedro Valdez Castro, Master’s Student, LLILAS, UT Austin
12:00 PM – BREAK
1:30 – 2:45 PM
PANEL 7 – SPIRITUAL-CULTURAL PRACTICES SURROUNDING WATER
Waiting in the Water: Ezili as a Theory of Black Queer History
Omise’eke Tinsley, Professor of Black Studies, University of California Santa Barbara
Simbi, Mermaids, and Power from the Waters in African/Atlantic Cultures
Ras Michael Brown, Associate Professor of History, Georgia State University
Moderators: Khytie Brown, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies; and Nadia Issa, PhD Student, Religious Studies, UT Austin
2:45 PM – BREAK
3:00 – 4:00 PM – KEYNOTE ADDRESS
La defensa del Río Gualcarque, un camino de justicia para el pueblo lenca
Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, General Coordinator, Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH)
Moderators: Luis Cárcamo-Huechante, Associate Professor of Spanish & Portuguese, Director Native American and Indigenous Studies; Pablo Millalen, PhD Candidate, LLILAS, UT Austin
4:15 PM – PUBLIC RECEPTION
Music by Grupo Folklórico de Tambor
Quadrangle Room, Texas Union Building, UNB 3.304
