Margaret Wilder

Assistant Professor, Latin American Studies and Geography & Regional Development

Ph.D., Geography, University of Arizona, 2002
M.A., Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, 1985
B.A., Government and International Affairs, University of Notre Dame, 1981

Phone: (520) 626-7231
Department Phone: (520) 626-7242
E-mail: mwilder@email.arizona.edu

Marshall Building, Room 286
Latin American Studies
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721

Research

My research program is linked conceptually by two central concerns: on the one hand, water and environment; on the other, poverty and development. These concerns are theoretically grounded within a political ecology framework focused on constructions of the social relations of power at multiple scales, interrogation of the role of the state under neoliberal regimes, and a fundamental preoccupation with questions at the boundaries between environment and poverty. My regional area of focus is Mexico (understood to be both the interior of Mexico and the Mexico-U.S. border), and more recently, Central America.

As a geographer and political ecologist, water is a specific yet broad lens through which I examine relations of power, shifting access to resources under processes of structural transformation, and the complex interplay of global and local forces in particular grounded contexts. How do changes in water and environment legislation and policy act to improve, alleviate or affect poverty? How do these changes promote, impede or shift development in rural and urban areas of Mexico and Central America? How do new institutional arrangements for water sector governance illuminate transformations in state-civil society relationships? How do new institutional arrangements for managing water and land create or close off opportunities for local participation, enhanced democratization, or greater 'sustainability' in use of resources (for example, through increased use of climate science and forecasts to mitigate vulnerability)? How can we understand fundamental analytical constructs such as "development," "the state," and "sustainability" within particular grounded contexts? As a bilingual North American scholar teaching at a university located nearly on Mexico's border, my research contributes to a greater understanding of how international institutions, such as the World Bank, shape local problematics leading to diverse responses and adaptations in Mexican contexts. Much of my research to date has focused on the northern Mexican state of Sonora, a state that has a double-identity reflecting both interior Mexican concerns as well as border/transboundary issues.

I am a co-PI on two projects relating to water, climate science and society in the Sonora-Arizona border region. One of my NOAA projects focuses on decentralization of water management in urban centers in Sonora and the implications of the new governance arrangements for democratization, utilization of climate science and forecasts by community stakeholders; and sustainability. A second project concerns a binational effort to establish an international conservation area to protect riparian and wildlife habitat in a critical area of the Lower Colorado River Delta.

In the near future, my focus on the water and poverty relationship will expand to a more variegated social and economic landscape. Currently, I am preparing a multiple-region project (Michoacán, Zacatecas, Oaxaca and Sonora) in Mexico, focused on how ejido water and land resources are being affected by privatization and urbanization. In contrast to most studies concerned only with formal land markets, I will consider specifically the role played by water in driving and shaping access to resources within the ejido (small communal producer) sector, and examine the equity and sustainability implications of such transformations. In recent months, I began to conduct research in Honduras and Costa Rica to examine the relationship among national water legislation and poverty and development in local communities. I was able to initiate this research when I was asked to participate in a Ford Foundation study on water and poverty in Honduras this summer. Additionally, with a research assistant, I will begin some research in southern Costa Rica in pineapple and coffee producing communities this winter.

Project Involvement

• Margaret Wilder. "Equity, Privatization and Reforms: Water and Small Farmers in Mexico," in Richard Perry, Helen Ingram, and John Whiteley, eds., Water and Equity: Apportioning Water Among Places and Values, an edited book volume under advance contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press Series on American and Comparative Environmental Politics and Policy (forthcoming)
• Andrea Ray, Gregg Garfin, Margaret Wilder, Melanie Lenart. "Applications of Monsoon Research and Forecasts: A Review and Synthesis" (forthcoming)
• Margaret Wilder, Pablo Wong Gonzalez, Barbara Morehouse, Nicolás Pineda Pablos, John Paul Jones, Stephen Cornell, and Anne Browning-Aiken. "Why Good Science Isn't Enough: Social and Institutional Dimensions of Ecosystem Sustainability in the Southwestern U.S. and Northwestern Mexico."
• Margaret Wilder, Samual Sanford, and Katherine Meehan. "Decentralization of Urban Water Management and Climate Science Use for Sustainability Planning in Sonora"
• Margaret Wilder, Nicolás Pineda Pablos, Carlos Rojas Salazar and Samual Sanford. "Watershed Councils and Climate Science Use toward Sustainability Planning in Sonora,"