Peterson, Maya Karin (Author)
This dissertation is an environmental historical approach to the history of Central Asia under Russian rule. It analyzes the ways in which first tsarist and later Bolshevik efforts to change the physical landscapes of Central Asia intersected with Russian imperial and Soviet notions of civilization, progress and modernity. The dissertation focuses in particular on the manipulation of water, which has always been a crucial and contested resource in Central Asia. Through three case studies of large-scale hydraulic projects and the multiplicity of actors involved in such endeavors--scientists, engineers, workers, entrepreneurs, local and regional officials, farmers, nomads, prisoners--the dissertation highlights the complex dynamics of power relations in this multiethnic frontier region. Rather than seeing the region as peripheral to a Russian core, my work treats Central Asia as inseparable from a larger Eurasian world. It highlights the fluidity of boundaries in the region and the existence of transnational labor and migration networks that made such large-scale hydraulic projects possible. By focusing on Russian and Soviet efforts to transform landscapes in the Central Asian borderlands, the dissertation also places Russia within global discourses of science, modernization, and imperialism in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Central Asia, for tsarist and Bolshevik officials alike, the apparent backwardness of Central Asian landscapes seemed to confirm the backwardness of indigenous peoples, justifying Russian and Soviet presence in the region. The invocation of science and technology as a means by which to improve agriculture and hydraulic engineering in Central Asia was intended to legitimate Russian and Soviet rule in the borderlands. In addition to transnational labor networks, large-scale hydraulic projects in the Central Asian borderlands were made possible by international transfers of expertise and technology. As Central Asian systems of water management became disengaged from the contexts of local environments, however, they lost their flexibility. Moreover, as Soviet rule consolidated in the region, Central Asia went from being a dynamic and fluid borderland to becoming an isolated periphery of the Soviet empire, a space for increasingly radical projects to transform Central Asian environments and the lives of the people who lived there.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/04, Oct 2012. Proquest Document ID: 915016115.
Book
Moritz von Brescius;
(2019)
German Science in the Age of Empire: Enterprise, Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers
(/isis/citation/CBB566967216/)
Book
Maya K. Peterson;
(2019)
Pipe dreams: water and empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin
(/isis/citation/CBB093005674/)
Book
Tim Stroshane;
(2016)
Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California's Central Valley Project
(/isis/citation/CBB260419535/)
Book
Josephson, Paul R.;
(2014)
The Conquest of the Russian Arctic
(/isis/citation/CBB001422068/)
Article
Isacar Bolaños;
(2022)
Water, Engineers, and French Environmental Imaginaries of Ottoman Iraq, 1868–1908
(/isis/citation/CBB594251287/)
Book
Pursell, Carroll W.;
(2005)
Companion to American technology
(/isis/citation/CBB001180187/)
Article
Hansen, Jan;
(2019)
Das Steuern und Regeln von Infrastrukturen und der Wasseralltag in Los Angeles (1870–1920) [Control and Regulation of Infrastructures and Everyday Water Life in Los Angeles (1870-1920)]
(/isis/citation/CBB820023036/)
Book
Wishart, David J;
(2013)
The Last Days of the Rainbelt
(/isis/citation/CBB001420378/)
Book
Ana Duarte Rodrigues;
Carmen Toribio Marín;
(2020)
The History of Water Management in the Iberian Peninsula: Between the 16th and 19th Centuries
(/isis/citation/CBB223206567/)
Book
Miller, Ian Jared;
(2013)
The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo
(/isis/citation/CBB001420333/)
Book
Sharma, Jayeeta;
(2011)
Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India
(/isis/citation/CBB001421813/)
Article
Protschky, Susie;
(2012)
The Empire Illuminated: Electricity, “Ethical” Colonialism and Enlightened Monarchy in Photographs of Dutch Royal Celebrations, 1898--1948
(/isis/citation/CBB001200589/)
Book
John Broich;
(2013)
London: Water and the Making of the Modern City
(/isis/citation/CBB454439004/)
Book
Susanne Bauer;
Tanja Penter;
(2022)
Tracing the Atom: Nuclear Legacies in Russia and Central Asia
(/isis/citation/CBB363250490/)
Article
Ross, Corey;
(2014)
The Tin Frontier: Mining, Empire, and Environment in Southeast Asia, 1870s--1930s
(/isis/citation/CBB001420325/)
Book
Barak, On;
(2013)
On Time: Technology and Temporality in Modern Egypt
(/isis/citation/CBB001450221/)
Article
Bryant, Raymond L;
(2013)
Branding Natural Resources: Science, Violence and Marketing in the Making of Teak
(/isis/citation/CBB001421508/)
Book
Amrith, Sunil S;
(2013)
Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants
(/isis/citation/CBB001421571/)
Thesis
Hardy, Eric M.;
(2011)
Policy Drought: Water Resource Management, Urban Growth, and Technological Solutions in Post-World War II Atlanta
(/isis/citation/CBB001567270/)
Article
James Beattie;
Ruth Morgan;
(2017)
Engineering Edens on This 'Rivered Earth'? A Review Article on Water Management and Hydro-Resilience in the British Empire, 1860-1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB671867232/)
Be the first to comment!