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About the speaker:

Dan grew up on Gunaikurnai Country in South Gippsland, Victoria. Their practice centers natural places which reflect and inform the human condition; entanglements with their settler-colonial heritage; and community action/activism. They are a resident of Broken Hill in NSW, on Wilyakali Country in Far Western, NSW, and are exploring issues of water injustice in the Murray-Darling Basin. They are currently a PhD candidate at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and member of the Water Justice Hub. Their research takes a political ecology approach to analyzing the past 30 years of water policy and management in relation to the Darling-Baaka River and Menindee Lakes. They are also a visual artist, filmmaker, and co-creator of Water Watch Radio; a weekly radio show about water management, broadcast on the Community Radio Network.

To learn more about Dan, please visit: https://waterfutures.anu.edu.au/study/student-profiles/uneven-gains-and-losses-phd-exploring-politics-injustice-basin and for more information on the research practice of Dan Schulz visit Fluid Fronts and Water Watch Radio.

About the seminar:

Despite policy efforts to address water insecurity in the wider Murray-Darling Basin, the Baaka-Darling River and its wetlands, located in Far Western NSW, has experienced ongoing degradation of ecosystems services which has negatively impacted human communities. The development of the Basin has seen the Baaka-Darling geo-located between two centres of hydraulic power, with major headwater dams and irrigation development on its upstream tributaries, and irrigation demands downstream on the Murray River. Its vitality, wholly dependent on its flowing waters, has experienced sustained ‘dewatering’. Despite this, some policy analysts continue to take a macro-scale perspective of the Basin’s water reform process, viewing the history of water reform as incrementally improving at the scale of the Basin. Weaving several narrative threads which include ecological changes in the Basin, hard and soft infrastructure developments, representational infrastructure, and development of powerful agribusiness-government networks, this research demonstrates that uneven distribution of gains and losses is fundamental to the structure of policy reform in the Basin. Using a political ecology lens on the widely researched issue of water distribution in the Basin reveals important insights into a fragmented river basin, plagued by ongoing interstate and community conflict, regulatory capture/institutional bias and foundational myths/colonial fantasies which have ensnared the Baaka-Darling in the relentless grip of systemic marginalisation.

Please join by using the link:
https://anu.zoom.us/j/6633934183?pwd=ZnJnelcxUDZJcXNSOTBraTU2d0kwUT09&omn=83049558517

Meeting ID: 663 393 4183
Password: 462534