Alejandro Camargo

ALEJANDRO CAMARGO, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Columbia, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “Sedimented Stories: Fluvial Forces and Agrarian Futures on a Climate Frontier.” Sedimented stories presents an examination of how the sediment that travels through fluvial environments intertwines with, and often disrupts, social life. Funding supported fieldwork in the La Mojana inland delta of Northern Colombia. The grantee conducted observation and semi-structured interviews in six riverine villages to examine the knowledge and practices people mobilized to make sense of the transformation of sediment dynamics such as erosion, transportation and deposition in a context of environmental pollution and climate adaptation programs. Research also explored the politics of belonging and property rights over riverine lands that are slowly disappearing as the erosive force of the river transforms the landscape, or progressively appearing as sediment excess accumulates. The study followed the work of climate adaptation practitioners, government officials, consultants, engineers, paleoecologists, and archaeologists as they interacted with sediment in their work to understand how and what they read in this material. The grant also provided the opportunity to work with engineers to produce hydrometric data of the San Jorge river and to access old aerial photographs to reconstruct the physical transformation of the river. This study will provide new insights into humans-earth relationships through an anthropological exploration of the fluid geologies of sediment.