When
The School of Geography, Development & Environment, with support of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, present the 12th Annual My Arizona Lecture:
"Absence and Loss-What Comes Next For the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands?"
By Scott Warren
Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Geography, Development & Environment
University of Arizona
Abstract: The border wall may largely be a discursive symbol in national politics, but in local places the wall being built by the current Presidential administration is devastating. In Arizona, federal conservation lands once thought of as the most protected are, ironically as it turns out, the most vulnerable to wall construction. An overwhelming sense of grief is one response to the project and its attending destruction, disconnection, and loss.
It should be said that previous governments helped usher in our current situation and that borderlands people have seen their fair share of crises before. For generations, on a daily basis, people have been left devastated and grief-stricken due to the policies implemented by distant government decision-makers. And for decades, land and wildlife have suffered greatly at the expansion of the border security industry. But the last four years have been especially hard.
This presentation is a geographer’s reflection on the last four years of living and working in the borderland. The story will be told in three parts, with both images and words.
“What comes next for the borderlands?” is the shared question we might consider together.
Join the Zoom Meeting here: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/87097818484