Hydrologic Discourses: The Politics and Practices of Hidden Water in Nashville, Tennessee

Abstract

This thesis ethnographically documents the politics of hidden waterways in the city of Nashville, Tennessee using multiple methods, including ethnographic observation, photography, mapping, and the collection of documents and media reports. First, I investigate the relationship between temporality and corporeality through the lens of feminist philosophy to explore the ways in which the design of urban water infrastructures (and the values embedded within these systems) mediates the relationship between people and water. Then I illustrate the ways in which the Cumberland River is both reproduced and recreated through citizen’s writing and the role of the physical environment in creating social meanings and experiences of residents. In the final chapter, I investigate the formation of community identity following the widespread flooding that occurred in Nashville in May 2010. I illustrate how flooding events can function as sites for the revisibilization of hydrologic processes that reveal an underlying logic of inequality reflective of broader social and political rationalities.