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UID:886-725@www.saute.ch
CLASS: PUBLIC
SUMMARY:Changing the Narrative: Water and Aesthetic Activism
DESCRIPTION:SANAS Symposium & AGM (Saturday 30 November 2019. 10-17h. Unive
 rsity of Geneva)\n\nIn recent years the US Supreme Court has been the site 
 of intense debates over rights to water: from challenges to the Clean Water
  Act – and the Environmental Protection Agency mandated to enforce it – to 
 the latest in the long history of disputes among southern and southwestern 
 states (Georgia v. Florida and Texas v. Colorado and New Mexico) concerning
  the distribution and supply of fresh water. Reflecting the urgency of the 
 water crisis, 2018-2028 has been declared the UN International Decade for A
 ction, “Water for Sustainable Development,” following the International Dec
 ade for Action, “Water for Life” (2005-2015). The threat to fresh clean wat
 er is intensified by the effects of the climate crisis and by human interve
 ntions such as the displacement of waterways to serve expanding cities, the
  privatization of water supplies (a cause of the tap-water crises in Flint,
  Michigan and Newark, New Jersey), and industrial pollution (like the leaka
 ge of hazardous waste into the floodwater that inundated Houston during Hur
 ricane Harvey and the spillage of toxic coal-ash from Duke Energy sites int
 o major North Carolina rivers in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence). The 
 threat of similar pollution (of the waters of the Great Lakes) is driving o
 pposition to Enbridge Energy Partners' proposed new Line 5 pipeline across 
 the Straits of Mackinac, the same environmental motive that has driven inte
 nse opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline (the #NODAPL movement, 2016-?)
  – which carries oil from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to 
 the Patoka oil tank farm (also serving the Enbridge, Keystone, and Trunklin
 e pipelines) in southern Illinois. The threat to water of leakage from Line
  5 into Lakes Michigan and Huron, from the Dakota Access Pipeline into the 
 Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and Lake Oahe, near the Standing Rock India
 n Reservation, have received a great deal of publicity. What has not been c
 learly highlighted is the profound threat to the existence of Indigenous na
 tions posed by these threats to water: a relevant example is the flooding o
 f significant portions of the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations
  by the US Army Corps of Engineers some 50 years ago to create the Oahe Dam
  and Lake Oahe. This kind of assault on Indigenous territorial, legal, cult
 ural, and spiritual sovereignties continues through such actions as the des
 ecration of burial grounds and other sacred sites, and the US violation of 
 the terms of historic nation-to-nation Treaties.\n\nWater then lies at the 
 center of a complex network of issues that show the US in conflict with sov
 ereign tribal nations as well as internally at the levels of federal and st
 ate government. The non-violent #NODAPL protests at Standing Rock were met 
 with intense US military opposition, and subsequently efforts have begun to
  criminalize popular protests against oil and gas pipelines. Certainly, thi
 s conflict puts into question the validity of the US claim to “popular demo
 cracy”: peaceful mass activism at Standing Rock and elsewhere is motivated 
 by heightened public awareness and popular mobilization. That is to say, th
 e multi-faceted water crisis provokes powerful means of storytelling that b
 ring aesthetics into relation with activism. From the Facebook check-in at 
 Standing Rock for virtual water protectors to Leslie Marmon Silko's environ
 mental justice epic Almanac of the Dead and Elizabeth LaPensée's recent vid
 eo game Thunderbird Strike, storytelling is being used to raise consciousne
 ss and to “change the narrative” concerning the values of water. This sympo
 sium asks how aesthetics are engaged in the interests of social activism, s
 pecifically as it relates to the ongoing water crisis in the US and globall
 y.
LOCATION:University of Geneva, Uni Bastions (Room B104)
DTSTAMP:20190911T115111Z
DTSTART:20191130T090000Z
DTEND:20191130T160000Z
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