Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality

Water and the Configuration of Social Worlds: An Anthropological Perspective

“…As has been suggested, such efforts and technological feats (also in other countries) became icons of modernity, sometimes also explicitly linked up with nationalist urges [13]. Along with the modernizing quest came a strong sense of clean water and sanitation being a public good, rather than simply a commodity, and this raised the expectations to society ( [13], p. 284).…”

“…Along with the modernizing quest came a strong sense of clean water and sanitation being a public good, rather than simply a commodity, and this raised the expectations to society ( [13], p. 284). This reminds us that the distinction between water and infrastructure is not always easily maintained, because the channelling itself fosters a particular relation between society and its citizens ( [11], p. 556).…”

“…Thus, taken into the material control of the rural "producers", it becomes whatever crop they choose to farm, applying their knowledge and skill to transform soil, water and seed into the agriculture that defines who they are ([10], pp. [13][14]). …”

Producing the ideal fascist landscape: nature, materiality and the cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes

“…Indeed, the project exhibits many similarities in aims and scope to a number of modernising plans that were materialised across the world at around the same time: the Tuscan maremma (1928), a large scale coastal reclamation project; the Zuiderzee dyke project in Holland (1920Holland ( -1932, which produced the Ijsselmeer, an enclosed area of water that would later host urban settlements produce Athens as a western sanitized metropolis (Kaïka 2006). All of these projects shared not only the aim to produce new techno-natural landscapes that would contribute to the development of national economies, but also the desire to link these socially constructed techno-natures to a broader project of promoting national unity and identity.…”

“…Notwithstanding Italy's specific political and economic conditions under fascism, the Pontine Marshes project bears many similarities with other modernizing projects that were implemented across the western world during the first half of the 20 th century and aimed at taming and controlling nature. Geographical enquiry has offered detailed studies on such projects around the world, from Weimar Germany (Herf 1984), Spain (Swyngedouw 2007), England (Cosgrove, Roscoe and Rycroft 1996;Daniels 1993;Matless 1992), France (Harvey 2003) and Greece (Kaïka 2006), to Stalin's Russia (Bassin 2000) and the United…”