Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0004-8998-2625
Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Anthropology
Second Department
History
Reader 1
Joanne Nucho
Reader 2
Omer Shah
Reader 3
Penny Sinanolglou
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
@ 2024 Cooper L Crane
Abstract
This article discusses the history of land development and infrastructure along the Santa Ana River in Southern California. The river plays a significant role in the landscape of many of Southern California’s cities and urban geographies but has been relatively underdiscussed in literature. This article approaches the river using a combination of historic ethnography and sociocultural theory to unpack the meanings of the infrastructure of the river and its relation to Southern Californians. From these meanings, the article places the river in context with environmental politics, urban development, and water management issues in California today. The article argues that the invisibility created by the Santa Ana River’s infrastructure is the result of several key historic projects to protect private land ownership, which intersects with historic processes of myth making about Southern California’s climate and geography. Moreover, this invisibility is importantly hiding several aspects about California’s water management and water politics that provide solutions, and realities about the so-called California Water Crisis.
Recommended Citation
Crane, Cooper Lennon, "The Unseen River and Infrastructural Silences: The Santa Ana River and the Ontology of Floods" (2024). Pomona Senior Theses. 318.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/318
Included in
Other Anthropology Commons, Other History Commons, Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, Political History Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social History Commons, United States History Commons
Comments
The Unseen River (arcgis.com)