Kessie Alexandre | Water Activism and Post-Black Power Politics in Newark
In this talk, Kessie Alexandre traces connections between recent anti-water privatization protests in Newark, New Jersey, and the 1967 rebellion in the city. It considers how residents and officials have defined Black self-determination not only through Black political representation in city politics, but also through the public control of water infrastructures.
About the speaker
Kessie Alexandre is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her book project, Floods and Fountains: Urban Water Governance and Black Spatial Futures, is an ethnography of urban water insecurity and Black environmental struggles in Newark, New Jersey. This research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council for Learned Societies, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Environmental Institute and Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Alexandre has published in Geoforum and Current Anthropology. She received her PhD in anthropology with a graduate certificate in African American studies from Princeton University.
About the series
Living With — and Without — Water
On transforming our built environment to survive a changing climate
As our climate changes, our cities and infrastructure are faced with having too much and/or too little water. Water shortages, drought, sea level rise, and flooding are among the most pressing environmental challenges of our times. In the College of Environmental Design lecture series Living With — and Without — Water, invited speakers investigate the theme of water and the built environment from multiple perspectives and disciplines: architecture, environmental engineering, city planning, landscape architecture, art, and ethnography.
Free and open to the public.
If you require accommodation to fully participate in this event, please email ceddean@berkeley.edu at least 10 days prior to the event.