Running out: In search of water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire

• Main Author: RANDLE, Sayd
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Anthropology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/97; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cis_research/article/1096/viewcontent/American_Ethnologist___2023___Randle___Running_out__In_search_of_water_on_the_High_Plains_By_Lucas_Bessire__Princeton__NJ_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Throughout his lyricalRunning Out: In Search of Water on theHigh Plains, Lucas Bessire returns repeatedly to WagonbedSprings, an oasis long gone dry in western Kansas. Withinhis densely woven narrative of aquifer depletion, these springsemerge as a place with several valences. They are, of course, anaboveground manifestation of the effects of subterranean waterextraction. But just as central to the book’s project, Bessire usesthe site to explore the notions of complicity and repair—bothhis own and his ancestors’—in relation to the fast-decliningOgallala Aquifer.