Premium
Depletion
Author(s) -
Bessire Lucas
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal for the anthropology of north america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2475-5389
DOI - 10.1002/nad.12115
Subject(s) - ethnography , rurality , sociology , environmental ethics , politics , commons , order (exchange) , epistemology , social science , political science , law , anthropology , philosophy , economics , rural area , finance
Abstract This essay introduces the problematic of groundwater depletion and aquifer ethnography on the US High Plains, home to five generations of the author's family, in order to reflect more broadly on the following questions: What would it mean to take responsibility for our roles in the political present? How might rurality orient a search for nonnormative commons within the contemporary? What kind of commensurabilities could enable a more effective critical engagement with proliferating experiences of extraction, disregard, and uncertainty? And how might ethnography contribute to a future beyond depletion?