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When Janine Schipper first moved to the southwest more than 25 years ago, her attention was on the land. She was in the process of finishing her doctoral dissertation, focused on and the culture and politics of land use.

But Schipper, who is now a professor of sociology at Northern Arizona University, gradually began to see that land use was, in her words, “intricately interwoven� with the way our culture uses and thinks about water.

Since 2014, she has been researching and reconsidering the idea of water sustainability in this region. The culmination of that research is a new book, "Conservation is Not Enough: Rethinking Relationships with Water in the Arid Southwest,"  by University of Wyoming Press in hardcover, paperback, and digital formats.

The book draws on 95 “water narratives� collected across Arizona and other southwestern states with the help of numerous graduate students over a three-year period. And it also reflects the evolution of Schipper’s personal relationship with water.

Like many who discover the basic challenge of water scarcity in the southwest’s dry climate, Schipper began by trying to change her own, individual actions. “Basically, I saw myself as an aspiring conservationist when I first started,� she said. “I was thinking about how we use water, how to use water more efficiently. � I thought about water in terms of how I use it as a resource.�

“But as a sociologist,� she added, “I knew that there were limits to that kind of individual, lifestyle approach, and I needed to broaden my perspective.�

The southwest is experiencing its driest period in over a thousand years, Schipper noted. (Some climate scientists refer to the current period as the “emerging southwestern North American .�) “I wanted to understand how others are grappling with this reality,� Schipper explained, “and what concerns they had, and what solutions they seek.�

One of the major themes that emerged from her research was a shared ethic of conservation that united diverse interviewees. “No matter what their age, no matter what their culture, profession or political orientation, they shared this value of conservation, without me ever mentioning or the students ever mentioning the word ‘conservation� � that was not in any of our questions,� Schipper said. “People not only valued it, but practiced it, and talked heavily about their conservation orientation.�

Yet despite the prevalence of this attitude, Schipper also came to believe -- as the book’s title indicates -- that the dominant narrative of water conservation was burdened by its connection to Anglo-European views of the natural world as something to be managed, controlled, and enlisted for human purposes.

“Colonialism focused on making the land viable for European expansion and development,� Schipper said. “Conservation arose within that colonial worldview as a means to make it possible for that westward expansion. And so the view of water and land and nature is that of ownership, and control � how to control that, as a resource to be used.�

Among the conversations that shifted her thinking, she said, was one with Hopi tribal elder Vernon Masayesva, who “speaks about humans not as users of waters, but as gourds within the water cycle, like vessels that carry and release water, as part of water’s journey.�

“We’re part of the water cycle,� she added. “That just really helped me start to see things differently.�

(Although portions of the book emphasize the contemporary relevance of indigenous perspectives on water like Masayesva’s, Schipper stressed that she does not consider herself an expert on native views of the more-than-human world. “As a non-Indigenous person, I really offer this from a place of humility and learning, not as a definitive understanding of those accounts,� she said.)

“Through the course of researching, talking to a lot of people, writing, processing -- through all of this, and listening to many different voices, my relationship with water dramatically shifted,� Schipper said. “I no longer view water as a resource to be conserved. I see water more as a living being, who I have begun fostering a deeper relationship with.�

It’s that sort of relational perspective, built on "deeper respect and reverence," that Schipper hopes to encourage in readers of her book. She believes that our attitude toward water needs to shift away from an ownership mindset and toward an ethic of care, reciprocity, and gratitude.

The managerial, conservationist view of water, she noted, is relatively new in the long human history of this region, emerging only within the past century. “The fact that that shift has already happened� it gives me hope that we can change how we relate with water,� Schipper said. “We’ve changed before. We can do that again.�

Her book is an attempt to nudge communities in that direction, but not the endpoint of her work. She hopes it will be the beginning of future conversations, and the impetus for new questions that push the human inhabitants of this region to reevaluate the way they view the rivers, the rain, the summer storms, and the kitchen faucet.

“How might we rethink this together?� Schipper said.