NEW ORLEANS, La. – Anthropology master’s student, Kylie Papson, brought her Tahoe insights to the land of Creole flavors, beignets and jazz at the American Anthropological Association’s conference in New Orleans, La. in November.
Papson joined other students from her cultural anthropology program at the University of Nevada, Reno, on a panel where they shared their experiences on a relatively new concept in the field—focusing an anthropological lens at home.
“There’s usually this idea that anthropologists have to go out to another place and study a different community that’s not our own,” Papson explained. “But actually, anthropologists are pretty well suited to turn in and study their own communities and see what they can learn.”
For Papson, her home has been the Tahoe-Truckee community since 2022. Prior to that, she lived in Reno.
It’s possible that without her move to Truckee for a marketing job, Papson would have never stumbled upon her fascination for anthropology. The move led Papson to an observation that put her on that course.
“People in Reno talk about water differently than they do in Tahoe and Truckee,” she says. “When I moved up to Truckee, I heard new conversations, which sparked my interest in studying the dialogues of water policy here.”
Although water is often assumed, Papson says she learned that access to the seemingly ubiquitous resource is partially a result of shifting and competing dialogues about natural resources and the best ways to use them.
It left her asking: Who is getting left out of the conversation, and how is that shaping local water policy?
This curiosity turned into a master’s degree pursuit with a thesis delving into water policy in the Tahoe Basin.
Her goal is to conduct a network analysis of Lake Tahoe to reveal those gaps in inclusivity. In doing so, she hopes to discover how Lake Tahoe is important to different users and how people relate to the water. She aims to provide information about how diverse individuals and communities understand and describe Lake Tahoe, exploring the potential for collaborative water policy design.
“It’s not only to focus on what’s going wrong,” she says, “but also to see what’s going right.”
In her research towards that goal, Papson has learned that the history of Lake Tahoe and water governance in the Western U.S. has shaped the way regional leaders work with and conceptualize water policy, in addition to who has a say in it.
“For some communities, contemporary natural resource management has an extractive and traumatic history, especially for our Indigenous communities,” she says. “Pieces of those historical practices still carry on into today.”
Whether it was settler colonialism or water grabs, Papson says, “that past can’t just be erased and it still percolates into what we see today.”
These insights are something she was able to share on the conference panel. It was fitting since the conference theme was “Ghosts,” exploring how the past can linger in the present.
In her pursuits, the master’s student has interviewed government organizers, environmentalists, scientists, and others who have, or have had, an active voice in policymaking dialogue to see how the upper structure of policy is functioning.
“Understanding why some people are able to access dialogues about water management,” she says, “can help us understand how to open up dialogues to more people in the future.”
This spring, Papson seeks to speak with the communities that are left out of water management and policy conversations to uncover why and learn how they’d like to see themselves in the policy process.
Another point of interest she discussed on the panel is the dichotomy of collaboration and conflict when it comes to caring for Tahoe.
“People actually do want to collaborate and work together to protect Lake Tahoe,” she’s says, “but sometimes there’s disagreement on how best to do that.”
Papson also shared that in talking water policy, she has observed how interconnected the subject is to other topics around the basin.
“It’s impossible to talk about water policy without also talking about wildfire management, and forest thinning, development, or about sensitive meadow ecosystems.”
Experiencing the national meeting has broadened Papson’s awareness to how other regions are navigating similar issues as Tahoe when it comes to climate change, as well as sustainability.
“It was exciting to share what’s happening in Lake Tahoe with more people and to see how other communities worldwide answer questions about similar issues to what we’re facing in Tahoe,” she said.
Papson will be completing her master’s program in the spring after wrapping up her thesis on water policy in Tahoe.
In being unique in its operations, Papson says Lake Tahoe provides an opportunity to explore how to open access to water management and also be an example of what’s going right to other communities facing similar issues.
Anyone interested in speaking about their experiences with water policy in the Lake Tahoe Basin or who would like to learn more about the project is encouraged to contact Papson at kpapson@unr.edu.
