Retooling Extraction

Water in what appears as a small pond takes on orange and yellow hues; it pools toward a spot where white foam has accumulated.

Retooling Extraction is a NSF-funded project led by Andrea Ballestero (USC), Christy Spackman (ASU), and Katie Ulrich (USC and Harvard University). It seeks to understand how devices for water resource extraction are being retooled in the early 21st century in response to anticipated challenges at the water-food-energy nexus.

Many experts predict that climate change and population growth will make conflict over water the defining characteristic of the 21st century. These worries have fueled attempts to find new ways to make water resources extractable, especially amid concerns over energy and food shortages. This collaborative project examines two cases (Arizona and California) where water scarcity has rendered agricultural, industrial, and municipal wastewaters an increasingly attractive substance for extracting not only water for reuse, but also other resources like rare earth elements and carbon. Researchers are investigating how devices for making water resources extractable are being retooled in the early 21st century in response to ongoing and projected challenges. Recent efforts to intensify water resource extraction are “retooling” historical conceptions and technologies that previously determined where water exists, what constitutes a usable form of water, and how water can be used. We define retooling as the process of reorienting existing technologies to new domains or problems. Retooling makes water an ideal case for investigating (a) how extraction techniques shift amid concerns about future scarcity and (b) how this recharts hydrological frontiers. By investigating how retooling renders intensified extraction possible, this project will show how hydrological frontiers are remade.

Open Panel at 4S 2025: “Retooling: Change and Continuity in Turbulent Worlds,” Friday September 5

As part of the Retooling Extraction project, we’ve organized an Open Panel at 4S 2025 with the aim of ultimately developing a special journal issue. If you’re in Seattle for the meeting, please join us for one or all sessions on Friday September 5 in 324 Summit (Convention Center)!

1 – Retooling Technologies, 8:30 AM – 10:20 AM, Friday 9 Sept, 324 Summit (Convention Center)

Batteries, solar panels and the nonlinear temporalities of the microgrid, Joanne Randa Nucho, Associate professor, University of Southern California

It’s just a filter! Or is it? Filtration technologies and the remaking of wastewater treatment, Christy Spackman, Associate Professor, Arizona State University

A technology of filtration or purification? Understanding the popularity of reverse osmosis water purifiers in India, Gaurav Vilas Kapse, Mr., IITB Monash Research Academy Mumbai; Pankaj Sekhsaria, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; Murali Sastry, Monash University

If it’s broken, don’t fix it – on the stewardship of dormant technologies, Sebastian Abrahamsson, Uppsala University

2 – Retooling Knowledge, 10:40 AM – 12:30 PM, Friday 9 Sept, 324 Summit (Convention Center)

Drone inside out: Iran’s reverse-engineering warfare, Soha Saghazadeh, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Film and Media Studies, University of California Santa Barbara

Glacial encounters: scientific knowledge and local practice in the Karakoram Region, Ihsan Arsalan, Rice University

The death of the father (of Australian wildfire science), Timothy D. Neale, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Deakin University

Retooling bioscience governance: “Hilirisasi” platforms as postcolonial policy, Sonja van Wichelen, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Sydney

Turning water into carbon: retooling wastewater for twenty-first century extraction, Katie Ulrich, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University

3 – Retooling Extraction, 1:30 PM – 3:20 PM, Friday 9 Sept, 324 Summit (Convention Center)

Planet mold: retooling fungal biology for a warming world, Jamie Cross, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Glasgow

Sensing air, explicating capital, Ashima Mittal, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago

The pliability of concrete: climate adaptation and the re-plumbing of California’s water infrastructure, Andrew Lakoff, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California

Retooled excisions: scientific innovations and postcolonial socio-environmental justice, Aida Arosoaie, PhD Candidate, UW-Madison

The trust: retooling the legal geographies of science and nature in the era of … neo-fascism/populism/something else?, Andrea Ballestero, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Southern California

4 – Retooling Affects and More-than-human Entanglements, 3:40 PM – 5:30 PM, Friday 9 Sept, 324 Summit (Convention Center)

Mistrust as data: retooling knowledge in smart farming in Turkey, Ziya Kaya, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Sedimentary inheritances and abstract reassurances: the work of proposed levee infrastructure in Louisiana’s northshore, Nicole C. Mabry, PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley

Opening up personhood: legal categories and sociotechnical change, Jennifer Petersen, Associate Professor, University of Southern California

Mammal infrastructures: Carabao and human entanglements in the Philippines, Alena Zhang, PhD Candidate, Cornell University