2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

In her introduction to Opposing Currents: The Politics of Water and Gender in Latin America, Vivienne Bennett reports that even though one of the four “Dublin Principles” crafted at the 1992 International Conference on Water and the Environment stated, “(w)omen play a central role in the provision, management, and safeguarding of water,” Despite this assertion, “the most ignored, has been the principle recognizing that women and men already have differentiated experiences in water use and differentiated knowledge about domestic and irrigation water management.” (Vivienne Bennett, “Introduction,” In Opposing Currents: The Politics of water and Gender in Latin America, edited by Vivienne Bennett, Sonia Davila-Poblete, and Maria Nieves Rico, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005 p. 1-5.) We contend that more can be done to explore women’s participation in the struggles over water quality, use, and access within the fields of women’s and gender history and the field of environmental history. This kind of exploration, informed by the particularity of time and place, not only enriches our understanding of women’s agency by including women’s activities heretofore under explored, but also adds important stories to our understanding of women’s grass roots efforts on behalf of the environment. Our panel, “Water, Capitalism, Neoliberalism, and Women’s Agency,” would examine these issues in comparative perspective.