Conferencing: Anthropogenic Waterways and Nationalism in Guyana, South America

I rarely present at conferences, not because I'm shy nor because I'm completely lazy. It's generally because I see conferences as a networking space. It can definitely be fun, but I find it's not fun to present one's work to people who don't share similar geographic or theoretical concerns and understandings. In June 2015 I had the opportunity to present at the Canadian Association of Geographer's annual meeting. I was invited to present a session that became three panels,  Assessing the Situation of the Peoples and Ecosystems of the Guiana Shield. Fifteen presenters were scheduled to speak, unfortunately five cancelled and one video-ed in. My paper, "Anthropogenic Waterways and Nationalism in Guyana, South America," was the only piece on urban issues. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear about research in Suriname, the forests of Guyana and on the Rupunui.

When I submitted this abstract in February 2015, it was only a suspicion of what was happening in Guyana. Immediately after President Granger took office on May 16, 2015, Georgetown was rallied to clean up the city. It's pretty exciting to see ideas manifest in reality but what this means for me is more research to fully think about this issue and hopefully work it into a proper paper in the near future. In the meantime, this is the abstract of my paper. If you'd like the PowerPoint or paper, or you'd like to chat, feel free to contact me.

Anthropogenic Waterways and Nationalism in Guyana, South America

Aruna Panday

York University

Guyana’s coastal landscape is deeply anthropogenic, rife with multifarious water control systems: drainage and irrigation canals, dykes and kokers, water conservancies, runoff trenches, re-introduced mangrove forests, and the seawall defense system. This paper does two things, first inspired by Hugh Raffles’ In Amazonia (2002), it examines the ways in which this manipulation and transformation of nature in the making of these water management systems, transforms people’s lives. Guyana is facing a major rubbish removal crisis. Weeds block trenches and plastic garbage clogs up kokers and mangroves, contributing to flooding. In the Atlantic, rubbish creates sea-scouring action damaging sea defenses. The facilities and infrastructure for waste disposal are in desperate need of improvement and regular maintenance. Billboards sponsored by various state agencies proclaim ‘Littering is a crime, let’s keep Guyana clean,’ promoting the ‘Keep Guyana Clean’ campaign, and garbage removal strategies are one of the major campaign concerns for the 2015 elections. Accordingly, the second concern of this paper then draws on Arun Agrawal’s “Environmentality,” that is the “governmentalization of the environment” (2005:11) as processes, related institutions, practices and subjectivities that (re)shape the environment, to analyze the ways people speak formally and informally about the environment, waste management, and discourses of Guyanese nationalism.