New Book Examines How America's Growth Obsession Is Poisoning Its Own Water Supply
A public discussion in Aarhus brought together researchers from México, Brazil, Denmark, and the US around Daniel Mains's new book on water, politics, and infrastructure in urban Oklahoma.
Nourishing Growth and Suffocating Life: Water, Politics, and Infrastructure in Urban Oklahoma was the centerpiece of a book launch and public discussion held on 4 June at Café Mellemfolk, Mejlgade 53, Aarhus C. The event was co-sponsored by CEBRAGA (Center for Brazilian and Global Affairs), the Departments of Global Studies and Anthropology, and the AU Water Cluster — with LACUA (the Latin American Centre at Aarhus University) also participating.
Author Daniel Mains, Professor at the University of Oklahoma, argued that subsidised economic growth carries self-destructive consequences for drinking water and stormwater infrastructure. Using Norman, Oklahoma as a case study, he charts how decades of development decisions have degraded water quality and strained urban infrastructure to a breaking point.
Ciara Kierens, Professor at Aarhus University and leader of the FILTERSCAPE project, brought perspectives on water politics, health, and technology in Denmark and Mexico. Léa Lebeaupin-Salamon, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Louvain in Belgium, contributed from her active research on water politics in Brazil. The event was moderated by Derek Pardue of Aarhus University, co-founder of CEBRAGA.
Together, the panel reframed Mains's Oklahoma case study within a broader global pattern — one in which the politics of water, infrastructure, and growth play out across the Americas and Europe with striking parallels.
LACUA opened its 2026 programme with its first gathering of the year, featuring presentations by Steffen Köhn on digital culture in Cuba and Andrés Chaur on memory and post-conflict communities in Colombia.
The Latin American Centre at Aarhus University opened its 2026 programme with its first gathering of the year, bringing together colleagues from across disciplines: culture and communication, anthropology, linguistics, memory studies, and intercultural studies.
Digital networks and grassroots culture in Cuba
Steffen Köhn, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, shared ethnographic work from his forthcoming book Island in the Net: Digital Culture in Post-Castro Cuba, exploring how Cuban society has navigated the constraints and possibilities of digital technology — foregrounding agency, creativity, and everyday resistance through grassroots networks and digital black markets.
Memory, care, and post-conflict communities in Colombia
Andrés Chaur, Visiting PhD Scholar at Aarhus University and co-coordinator at LACUA, presented his doctoral research on the Salón del Nunca Más in Granada, Antioquia — a memory site built by survivors and victims' families as an act of collective witness and civic repair. The research is situated at the intersection of Hartog's régimes d'historicité and a feminist ethics of care, advancing the concept of cuidado de la diferencia.
LACUA as a platform for dialogue
The meeting reaffirmed LACUA's purpose as a sustained, multidisciplinary hub where researchers working on Latin American themes can share work and build intellectual community — and where Latin American cases speak productively to questions that matter in the Danish and Scandinavian context. Researchers interested in engaging with LACUA's programme are warmly encouraged to reach out.
