Abstract
This article contributes to the urban political ecology of water through applied anthropological research methods and praxis. Drawing on two case studies in urban Sonora, Mexico, we contribute to critical studies of infrastructure by focusing on large infrastructural systems and decentralized alternatives to water and sanitation provisioning. We reflect on engaging with residents living on the marginal hillsides of two rapidly urbanizing desert cities using ethnographic methods. In the capital city of Hermosillo, Radonic emphasizes how collaborative reflection with barrio residents led her to reframe her analytical approach to water governance by recognizing informal water infrastructure as a statement of human resilience in the face of social inequality, resource scarcity, and material disrepair. In the border city of Nogales, Kelly-Richards reflects on the outcomes of conducting community-based participatory research with technical students and residents of an informally settled colonia around the construction of a composting toilet, while also investigating municipal government service provision efforts. Our article invites readers to view these infrastructure alternatives as ways to explore how applied anthropology can advance the emancipatory potential of urban political ecology through a collaborative investigation of uneven urbanization and basic service provisioning. We emphasize everyday situated relationships with infrastructure in informally organized neighborhoods. Using praxis to collectively investigate the complex and entangled relations between large piped water and sanitation projects and locally developed alternatives in under serviced areas, the two case studies reveal lessons learned and illuminate grounded research openings for social justice and environmental sustainability.Key words: Applied anthropology, infrastructure, political ecology, praxis, water governance, social justice
Highlights
This article contributes to the urban political ecology of water through applied anthropological research methods and praxis
We argue that applied anthropology's conceptual and methodological commitment towards praxis can contribute to political ecology's potential as a critical hatchet and a practically engaged seed
These case studies provide methodological insight leading toward collaborative, transformational research in urban political ecology
Summary
Political ecology is an intellectual tradition that seeks to dismantle dominant accounts of environmental issues, considering these portrayals as often conducive to unjust socio-environmental change. For applied anthropologists, praxis goes beyond the researchers' ethnographic engagement in social reality and calls for involvement of research participants in the research process (see Saxton 2015) Based on her involvement in research partnerships along the U.S.-Mexico border, Austin (2004) argues that collaborative community research provides a solid foundation for actively addressing environmental problems through reflective practice and reciprocal learning. We argue that applied anthropology's conceptual and methodological commitment towards praxis can contribute to political ecology's potential as a critical hatchet and a practically engaged seed. Haraway's (1988) idea of situated knowledges, that begin with the place and positionality of subjects in relation to their environments, supports our applied anthropology investigation of human-infrastructure relationships Together, these case studies provide methodological insight leading toward collaborative, transformational research in urban political ecology. By jointly exploring with residents the intricate relationships between large piped water and sanitation projects and locally developed alternatives in under-serviced areas, our two case studies illuminate grounded research openings for social justice and environmental sustainability
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