TY - JOUR
T1 - The Political Lives of Deserts
AU - Koch, Natalie
N1 - Funding Information:
Research for this project was supported by a Fulbright Core Scholars Grant, Middle East and North Africa Regional Research Program, an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, and a CUSE Grant from the Syracuse University Office of Sponsored Programs.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, © 2020 by American Association of Geographers.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Deserts, like any geographic setting, are not sites where geopolitical dramas simply unfold or “touch down”; rather, they actively constitute geopolitical orders. This article shows how taking deserts rather than states as an entry point can provide a unique lens on geopolitics, state making, and empire. Investigating the political lives of deserts requires asking how they are imagined, narrated, and connected across space and time, and with what effect. To do so, I consider one case of desert-to-desert connection: a long but little-known history of exchange between individuals and institutions in Arizona and the Arabian Peninsula. Taking one example from this history, I show how the “desert” as an environmental imaginary figured in the University of Arizona Environmental Research Laboratory’s joint greenhouse and desalting plant, which was initiated in Abu Dhabi in the late 1960s. Primarily drawing from archival research in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Arizona, I also show how this project fit into shifting geopolitical relations in the Arabian Peninsula’s colonial relations, the rise of the UAE as an independent state, and the role of experts working in the service of broader political agendas of the state and the academy, as well as their own self-interest.
AB - Deserts, like any geographic setting, are not sites where geopolitical dramas simply unfold or “touch down”; rather, they actively constitute geopolitical orders. This article shows how taking deserts rather than states as an entry point can provide a unique lens on geopolitics, state making, and empire. Investigating the political lives of deserts requires asking how they are imagined, narrated, and connected across space and time, and with what effect. To do so, I consider one case of desert-to-desert connection: a long but little-known history of exchange between individuals and institutions in Arizona and the Arabian Peninsula. Taking one example from this history, I show how the “desert” as an environmental imaginary figured in the University of Arizona Environmental Research Laboratory’s joint greenhouse and desalting plant, which was initiated in Abu Dhabi in the late 1960s. Primarily drawing from archival research in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Arizona, I also show how this project fit into shifting geopolitical relations in the Arabian Peninsula’s colonial relations, the rise of the UAE as an independent state, and the role of experts working in the service of broader political agendas of the state and the academy, as well as their own self-interest.
KW - Arabian Peninsula
KW - desert
KW - geopolitics
KW - historical geography
KW - political geography
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U2 - 10.1080/24694452.2020.1766410
DO - 10.1080/24694452.2020.1766410
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087902721
SN - 2469-4452
SP - 87
EP - 104
JO - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
JF - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
ER -