Abstract
A study of a watershed planning process in the Cache River Watershed in southern Illinois revealed that class divisions, based on property ownership, underlay key conflicts over land use and decision-making relevant to resource use. A class analysis of the region indicates that the planning process served to endorse and solidify the locally-dominant theory that landownership confers the right to govern. This obscured the class differences between large full-time farmers and small-holders whose livelihood depends on non-farm labor. These two groups generally opposed one another regarding wetland drainage. Their common identity as “property owner” consolidated the power wielded locally by large farmers. It also provided an instrument – the planning document – for state and federal government agencies to enhance their power and to bring resources to the region. The planning process simultaneously ameliorated conflicts between government agencies and the large farmers, while enhancing the agencies’ capacity to reclaim wetlands. In this contradictory manner, the plan promoted the environmental aims of many small-holders, and simultaneously disempowered them as actors in the region’s political economy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
J. Adams (1992) ArticleTitle“‘How can a Poor Man Live?’ Resistance to Capitalist Development in Southern Illinois, 1870–1890,” Rural History 3 IssueID1 87–110
J. Adams (1994) The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois 1890–1990 University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill
Adams, J., S. Kraft, J. B. Ruhl, C. Lant, T. Loftus, and L. Duram, Watershed planning: Pseudo-democracy and its alternatives, the case of the Cache River Watershed, Illinois. Agriculture, Food, and Human Values (forthcoming 2005)
Anonymous. 1976 [1890]. The Attractions of Cairo, Ill. Reprint by Cairo Public Library of pamphlet published by The People Print, Cairo, Ill
Beck, R. J., K. S. Harris, S. E. Kraft, and M. J. Wagner,Potential Economic Impacts of the Proposed Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge (Southern Illinois University Department of Agribusiness Economics, Carbondale, 1990) Final Report Submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Illinois Field Office of The Nature Conservancy.
R. Bellah (1996) [1985] Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life University of California Press Berkeley
J. P. Brosius (1999) ArticleTitle“Analyses and Interventions: Anthropological Engagements with Environmentalism,” Current Anthropology 40 IssueID3 277–309 Occurrence Handle10.1086/200019
Brosius, J. P. and D. Russell, “Influencing Conservation Paradigms, Policies and Practices: Recent Developments,” Proceedings, Environment, Resources, and Sustainability: Policy Issues for the 21st Century, Athens, Georgia, September 7–8. CD, 2002
J. Dryzek (2000) Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics and Contestations Oxford University Press NY
J. S. Dryzek (1996) Democracy in Capitalist Times: Ideals, Limits, and Struggles Oxford University Press New York & Oxford
Environmental Working Group. 2003. Farm subsidy database 1996–2001. Last updated December 20, 2002. http://www.ewg.org/farm
N. Fraser (1992) “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” C. Calhoun (Eds) Habermas and the Public Sphere MIT Press Cambridge, MA 109–142
J. K. Gibson-Graham S. Resnick R. D. Wolff (2001) “Toward a Poststructuralist Political Economy,” J. K. Gibson-Graham S. Resnick R. Wolff (Eds) Re/presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism Duke University Press Duram, NC and London
A. Giddens (1987) Social Theory and Modern Sociology Polity Press Cambridge
Gilbert, J., “Low Modernism and the Agrarian New Deal: A Different Kind of State,” in J. Adams (ed.), Fighting for the Farm: Rural America Transformed (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), pp. 129–146
Greenberg, J. B. and T. K. Park, ‘‘Political Ecology.’’ Introduction to Political Ecology, vol. 1: 1–12, 1994.http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/jpeweb.htmlfor the journal,http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_1/FOREWARD.PDFfor the article (most recent access 10/25/05).
A. Gutmann D. Thompson (1996) Democracy and Disagreement The Belknap Press of Harvard University Cambridge
J. Habermas (1989) Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere MIT Press Cambridge, Mass
J. Habermas (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2: Lifeworld and System. A Critique of Functionalist Reason Beacon Press Boston
J. Habermas (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalisation of Society Beacon Press Boston
Healey, P.,Building institutional capacity through collaborative approaches to urban planning. Environment and Planning 30 (Pion, London, 1998) 1531–1546.
Hutchison, M. D. Lower Cache Preservation Plan. Prepared for The Nature Conservancy, Illinois Field Office. Rockford, IL: The Natural Land Institute, 1984
ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research). N.d. Historical, Demographic, Economic and Social Data: The United States, 1790–1970, US Bureau of the Census Data Sets http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/ stats/histcensus/index.html.
C. P. Kottak (1999) ArticleTitle“The New Ecological Anthropology,” American Anthropologist 101 IssueID1 23–35 Occurrence Handle10.1525/aa.1999.101.1.23
S. Kraft J. Penberthy (2000) ArticleTitle“Conservation Policy for the Future: What Lessons Have We Learned from Watershed Planning and Research,” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 50 IssueID3 327–333
Kraft, S. E., C. L. Lant, J. Adams, J. Beaulieu, D. Bennett, L. Duram, and J. B. Ruhl (1999). Understanding the Social Context for Ecological Restoration in Multiple-owned Watersheds: the Case of the Cache River, Illinois. U.S. Department of Agriculture, NSF/EPA/USDA Water and Watersheds Program, CSREES project number: ILLZ-99E-0151. 1999–2002
Kraft, S. E., J. Adams, T. T. Loftus, C. L. Lant, L. A. Duram, and J. B. Ruhl, “Case Study – Watershed Planning in Watersheds Dominated by Multiple, Largely-Private Owners: The Cache River of Southern Illinois.” in A. Ewert, D. Baker, and G. Bissix (eds.), Integrated Resource and Environmental Management (IREM): the Human Dimensions, Englerwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005
H. R. Lantz (1972) A Community in Search of Itself: A Case History of Cairo, Illinois Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale
E. LiPuma S. K. Meltzoff (1997) ArticleTitle“The Crosscurrents of Ethnicity and Class in the Construction of Public Policy,” American Ethnologist 24 IssueIDFeb 114–131
N. Long (1992) “From Paradigm Lost to Paradigm Regained. The Case of Actor-Oriented Sociology of Development,” N. Long A. Long (Eds) Battlefields of Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research and Development Routledge London 16–43
Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force, Action Plan for Reducing, Mitigating, and Controlling Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, Washington, DC, 2001
P. Mooney (1988) My Own Boss? Class, Rationality, and the Family Farm Westview Press Boulder, CO
Moore, R., “The Sugar Creek Project: Tapping Subwatershed TMDL Potential in the Headwaters of the Ohio River.” Proceedings, Environment, Resources, and Sustainability: Policy Issues for the 21st Century, Athens, Georgia, September 7–8 CD, 2002
Mounds-Pulaski Enterprise. Vrs. Weekly newspaper published in Mounds, Illinois
D. L. Morgan R. A. Krueger (1998) The Focus Group Kit Sage Publications London
Geospatial & Statistical Data Center. n.d. Historical Census Browser. Compiled by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). University of Virginia Library. Accessed various times. url: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html.
L. P. Ogg M. L. Smith (1989) Alexander County, Illinois: Vol. 1, History and Families 1819–1989 Turner Publishing Co Paducah, KY
W. H. Perrin (Eds) (1990 [1883]) History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois McDowell Publications Utica, KY
A. Phillips (1995) “Dealing with Difference: A Politics of Ideas, or a Politics of Presence?” S. Benhabib (Eds) Democracy and Difference Pennsylvania State University Press University Park PA
Ramsar Convention Bureau, 2000, The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The Annotated Ramsar List: United States of America. Gland, Switzerland. Updated 9 January 2003. http://www.ramsar.org/profiles_usa.htm
RPC (Cache River Watershed Resource Planning Committee), Resource Plan for the Cache River Watershed: Union, Johnson, Massac, Alexander and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, 1995
J. B. Ruhl C. L. Lant S. E. Kraft J. Adams L. A. Duram T. T. Loftus (2003) ArticleTitle“Proposal for a Model State Watershed Management Act.” Environmental Law 33 IssueID4 929–948
S. Rugh (2001) Our Common Country: Family Farming, Culture, and Community in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest Indiana University Press Bloomington
S. Salamon (1994) Prairie Patrimony University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill
S. Salamon R. L. Farnsworth J. A. Rendziak (1998) ArticleTitle“Is Locally Led Conservation Planning Working? A Farm Town Case Study,” Rural Sociology 63 IssueID2 214–234
Southern Illinoisan. Vrs. Daily newspaper, Carbondale, Illinois
C. Stack (1996) Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South Basic NY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Vrs. Daily newspaper, St. Louis, Missouri
L. E. Swanson (2001) ArticleTitle“Rural Policy and Direct Local Participation: Democracy, Inclusiveness, Collective Agency, and Locality-based Policy,” Rural Sociology 66 IssueID1 1–21
Twist, Pseudonym for individual interviewed. Transcription in researchers’ archives, 2000
University of Illinois, Agricultural Experiment Station, The Illinois Veneer Container Industry, Bulletin 534, Urbana, IL, 1949
US Bureau of the Census, Population by Poverty Status in 1999 for Counties: 2000, Census 2000 Sample Demographic Profiles, Table DP-3, Copied and converted to Excel file and sorted by percent poverty. URL: http://www.census.gov/hhes/ poverty/2000census/poppvstat00.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2004
USGS (United States Geological Survey). 2001. Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Last revised June 20, 2001. http://wwwrcolka.cr.usgs.gov/midconherb/hypoxia.html
J. M. Valadez (2001) Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy, and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies Westview Press Boulder CO
E. P. Weber (2000) ArticleTitle“A New Vanguard for the Environment: Grass-Roots Ecosystem Management as the New Environmental Movement,” Society and Natural Resources 13 237–259
Wells, M., “The Contingent Creation of Interest Groups.” in J. Adams (ed.), Fighting for the Farm: Rural America Transformed, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) pp. 96–113
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10806-006-7501-7.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Adams, J. Class: an Essential Aspect of Watershed Planning. J Agric Environ Ethics 18, 533–556 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-005-0905-y
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-005-0905-y