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Globalization, Water and Health:
Resource Management in Times of Scarcity
Contemporary Issues Seminar
October 8-9, 2002

Participants

Linda Whiteford, Seminar Chair
Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida
"Health and Water as Resource Wealth in an Age of Globalization"

William Derman
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University
"The Incredible Heaviness of Water: Water Policy and Water Reform for the New Millennium in Southern Africa"

Anne Ferguson
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University
"Women and Water: Changing Anthropological and Global Paradigms"

David Guillet
Department of Anthropology, Catholic University
"Water Management Reforms and Small-Scale Irrigation"

Barbara Rose Johnston
Center for Political Ecology
"The Commodification of Water: Implications for the Role of Anthropology in Water Quality and Resource Rights Struggles"

Carl Kendall
Department of International Health and Development, Tulane University
"Waste Not, Want Not: Penny Capitalism and Global Lessons for Water Use from Lima, Peru"

Scott Whiteford
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Michigan State University
"Globalization, Boundaries and Inequality: The Trickle Down Effects"

Top Row [left to right] William Derman, Anne Ferguson Center Row [left to right]  Linda Whiteford, Carl Kendall, Barbara Rose Johnston Bottom Row [left to right] David Guillet, Scott Whiteford

Summary In recent years much discussion has focused on globalization, its impact on access to natural resources, and disparity in health outcomes. Too often these discussions have failed to establish clear linkages between the political, economic, and cultural domains and their human consequences. To address these issues, seven scholars met at SAR in October 2002 to examine the paradigms that underlie anthropological thinking and practice on globalization, water, and health. Drawing on research conducted in Africa, South America, the Caribbean and the US/Mexico border, participants demonstrated how anthropological theory and practice can contribute to the management of natural resource wealth. The purpose of this seminar, which was chaired by Linda Whiteford, professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida, was to develop a theoretical framework in preparation for a plenary session on "Globalization, Water, and Health" at the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology on March 20, 2003, in Portland, Oregon. This plenary session is sponsored, in part, by the School of American Research as part of an ongoing collaboration with the Society for Applied Anthropology.

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