CULTURAL IDEOLOGIES AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WATER IN THE UNITED STATES WEST: NORTHERN UTE INDIANS AND RURAL MORMONS IN THE UINTAH BASIN, UTA

This dissertation analyzes cultural differences in values about water held by Northern Utes of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation and by Anglo ranchers, farmers and small entrepreneurs (principally Mormons) in Roosevelt, Utah and surrounding communities. It explains the difficulties most Indians and some rural Anglos encounter in trying to protect their water and why these people often respond ambivalently to changes brought about by water projects. The explanation is based upon an analysis of the contradictions faced by those who assign non-market and spiritual meanings to water when the courts, industry, and government agencies recognize market and commodity valuations of water. Cultural differences in values and beliefs about water are examined within the historical and political-economic context of conflicts over water in Utah and the Colorado River Basin.;Interview, ethnographic, and archival data was collected over seven months of field research conducted during 1984 and 1985. The Uintah Basin was chosen because the Northern Utes and Mormon ranchers and farmers who live there have different histories and ways of using water, the Bureau of Reclamation's Central Utah Project and a federal salinity control program are causing social conflict and changes in water use, and the area is the potential site of future water transfers associated with energy development. Textual analysis is used on interview transcripts and journal notes to analyze cultural differences in people's beliefs about water's importance, meaning, and significance and in their opinions about various water issues and topics.;This research shows that cultural biases inherent in the western water law of prior appropriation, in free-market economics in water, and in governmental cost-benefit criteria for water projects pressure American Indians and some rural Anglos into utilizing their water in order to protect it, when often they have neither the desire nor sufficient capital to do so. This does not necessarily result in economic development for their local economies or in acceptance of commodity views about water, but does create fundamental contradictions to which these rural residents have to formulate responses.