ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4006-9021

Keywords

Environmental Anthropology. Political Ecology. Participatory GIS. Flood Risk. Climate Change and Environmental Justice. Miami-Dade County

Subject Categories

Anthropology | Environmental Studies | Geography

Abstract

This dissertation examines flooding in Miami-Dade County, Florida, as a historically produced and chronically experienced socio-environmental condition rather than a purely natural or climate-driven hazard. It argues that contemporary flood exposure emerges through the long-term interaction of hydrological transformation, environmental degradation, racialized spatial planning, and uneven climate adaptation, producing persistent and uneven geographies of vulnerability. Drawing on three interrelated studies, the research first reconstructs how drainage, canalization, and wetland destruction reengineered South Florida’s waterscape to enable urban development, while discriminatory land-use policies concentrated marginalized populations in environmentally precarious areas. It then turns to lived experience, using ethnographic fieldwork to show how recurrent flooding produces cascading material and intangible harms — including infrastructural failure, health risks, economic precarity, psychological strain, and cultural disruption — that remain largely absent from conventional risk assessments. Finally, it integrates participatory mapping, qualitative interviews, and visual documentation to demonstrate that residents’ experiential knowledge reveals micro-geographies of flooding that diverge from official hazard models and illuminate the socio-spatial organization of risk in everyday life. Methodologically, the dissertation advances an integrative anthropological approach that combines political-ecological analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), ethnography, and Participatory GIS (PGIS) to connect historical processes, structural inequalities, and lived experience across scales. Within this framework, flooding emerges as a chronic condition embedded in infrastructures, planning regimes, and adaptation strategies that unevenly distribute protection while normalizing exposure in low-income communities. iv Conceptually, the dissertation advances the notion of “architectures of flooding” to describe the interrelated socio-environmental configurations through which flood risk is historically produced, spatially organized, and unevenly sustained across urban space. By reframing flood risk as a product of development, governance, and power, this research challenges technocratic adaptation paradigms and underscores the need to integrate community knowledge and environmental justice into climate policy.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Walker, John

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Anthropology

Format

PDF

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Release Date

8-15-2028

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Available for download on Tuesday, August 15, 2028

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