Mixing Water and Culture: Making the Canal Landscape in Phoenix

Summary

This dissertation proposes that human-inhabited landscapes are made, maintained and re-made through complex social and cultural processes. These processes involve interactions among individuals and institutions, as well as the influence of dominant cultural attitudes. The study builds on current theory in landscape literature that geographers have used to recognize the importance of social processes in making landscapes, and the importance of these landscapes in maintaining and changing social systems.

In order to explore these principles, the research focuses on the remarkable landscape of canals in the Phoenix metropolitan area, in Arizona. Originating in the early years of the first millennium with irrigation developed by the Hohokam civilization in the Salt River Valley, the irrigation canals were revived when white settlers came to the area in the 1860’s. The researcher studies the canal landscape through four periods from 1868 to 2001 during which times we see the transformation of the landscape through stages from agricultural infrastructure to an urban commercial and recreational amenity. Archival documents, newspaper articles, photographic images and interviews are used to reveal the social and cultural milieu in each of the four periods.

The study shows that the social process of landscape change has involved a wide range of participants, with individuals and citizen groups becoming a significant force in the latter part of the Twentieth Century. It also demonstrates that pervasive trends in North American Society, such as the post World War II drive for efficiency in managing urban development and growth, has influenced the ways in which landscapes were made. The process of change represents a struggle to claim the canal landscape among agencies wanting to maintain the canals as a utilitarian landscape of infrastructure, commercial developers wanting to exploit the waterways as a tourist draw to the urban region, and citizens of the Phoenix metropolitan area wanting to use and enjoy the waterways to improve the quality of life in a desert environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• City of Phoenix DAHA Resources   •
• Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology (DAHA)

Keywords

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 1868 to 2001

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): City of Phoenix Archaeology Office

Submitted To(s): Arizona State University (ASU)

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