Return of the blog, part 68

This is a long-overdue quick post to get my blogging engine running again. I'm now back in New Mexico, on the outskirts of the captial, with a spectacular view from our casita of the Jemez Mountains and its current state of smoke and fire. In the first week of July, the scene was straight out of a Lord of the Rings set of Mordor (photo).

I'm here to not only try to write several pieces on the larger water governance, adjudication, and acequias project but also to work with one of our Southwest Studies majors and a rising senior at Colorado College, Andrew Wallace. He has chosen to look at the Aamodt adjudication, now in settlement talks with all stakeholders, and how legal pluralism is or is not visible in the original case and the run-up to the settlement itself. Legal pluralism is a concept that originates from the critical legal studies literature, as well as from anthropologists like Laura Nader who made extensive use of it in her work, that speaks to whether multiple forms of legal understandings are both present and visible (and perhaps accepted) in any given area. Here's a resource list for folks interested in the nexus between legal studies and anthropology. New Mexico certainly has several unspoken layers of legal pluralism, even if the law of the land is supposed to be prior appropriation.
So it should be a fun, informative, and rollicking two months here in New Mexico as we both sink our teeth into another mass of literature, interviews, and archival documents. As I read more, and write just a bit on these issues, I'm convinced I'm missing 90% of the story on water governance. And that's what makes for fascinating research. Until next time...