Infrastructural Landscape as Praxis: Technical Artifact Adaptations in Alberta’s Eastern Irrigation District

Abstract

Debates surrounding the continued development of Irrigation infrastructure within Southern Alberta’s Eastern Irrigation District focus on technological approaches to reducing water consumption by irrigation agriculture to alleviate strain on Alberta’s over-allocated river basins. However these methods of addressing consequences of industrial systems of production often escape comprehension and remove engagement at the human scale. The infrastructural frameworks that support these systems must be thought of not only as tools for production, but as mechanisms for representation, engagement, and questioning these consequences. Considering the mediating role that technical artifacts play in human engagement with the world, this thesis proposes that irrigation infrastructure can be designed as mechanisms for making visible the often overlooked relationships between infrastructural artifacts and the landscapes they constitute. In doing so, technologically focused solutions to the current water crisis can be called into question, allowing alternative paths of development to be explored.