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“You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA

Identification

Public canonical key
doi:10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393
Authors
Anna S. Cohen · H.J. François Dengah · Molly Boeka Cannon · Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez
Reported year
2026
Reported language
en
Source type
article
First detected
2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Last metadata observation
2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Last HTTP verification
Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Florida State University · Utah State University

Reported affiliation countries

US

Documentary abstract — original language

As hydroclimatic stress intensifies across the western United States, conflicts over water use increasingly reflect deep moral and social divisions rather than purely technical constraints. In Utah, severe drought, rapid population growth, and the desiccation of the Great Salt Lake have exposed competing ethical frameworks governing water access, responsibility, and value. While public debate has emphasized ecological decline and political controversy, less attention has been given to the moral economies shaping water governance in Cache Valley, a key agricultural region in the Bear River Watershed and a major source of inflow to the Great Salt Lake. We apply a moral economy framework to examine how farmers, water managers, and members of the public in northern Utah understand and justify water use. Using qualitative thematic analysis, we identify both convergence and divergence in stakeholders’ conceptions of fairness, entitlement, and stewardship. We argue that persistent conflict stems from fundamentally different, often unarticulated, ethical logics. By documenting competing moral economies within a single water system, we contribute to anthropological scholarship on resource governance and delve deeper into moral economic analysis in upper income countries.

Identifiers

OPENALEX
W7167793203
DOI
10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393

Documentary context

Documentary family
Scholarship
Source-reported types
article
Natural entities mentioned
River · Lake · Watershed

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

  • openalex:w1993466619 · CITES
  • openalex:w2001186043 · CITES
  • openalex:w2004113883 · CITES
  • openalex:w2014831132 · CITES
  • openalex:w2037873216 · CITES
  • openalex:w2043699734 · CITES
  • openalex:w2090677537 · CITES
  • openalex:w2095784712 · CITES
  • openalex:w2118767551 · CITES
  • openalex:w2120991933 · CITES
  • openalex:w2480174911 · CITES
  • openalex:w2496265762 · CITES
  • openalex:w2731655456 · CITES
  • openalex:w2736235139 · CITES
  • openalex:w2995809189 · CITES
  • openalex:w3001451464 · CITES
  • Stop Burying the Lede: The Essential Role of Indigenous Law(s) in Creating Rights of Nature · CITES
  • openalex:w3092024657 · CITES
  • openalex:w3153108330 · CITES
  • openalex:w4206292259 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary field provenance

Source-backed values and values with unresolved provenance are kept separately. Bibliographic provenance validates no legal claim.

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Authors
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Document type
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Jurisdiction
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Court
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DOI
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ISBN
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Official identifier
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Amendment / repeal
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Cite this reference

Anna S. Cohen; H.J. François Dengah; Molly Boeka Cannon; Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez. “You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393

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APA, Chicago, ISO 690: bibliographic formats using available fields. OSCOLA / Bluebook: structured data only; full legal citation compliance is not claimed without verification of required elements.

APA
Anna S. Cohen; H.J. François Dengah; Molly Boeka Cannon; Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez. (2026). “You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393
Chicago
Anna S. Cohen; H.J. François Dengah; Molly Boeka Cannon; Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez. “You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393
ISO 690
Anna S. Cohen; H.J. François Dengah; Molly Boeka Cannon; Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez. “You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library. “You can take a guy’s wife, but don’t take his water”: Competing moral economies for water in Cache Valley, Northern Utah, USA. Documentary record: https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-1b4e130722903c5f1d7c0847eabf65d5/ · Last HTTP verification: not performed

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Field provenance and record version

Version 83d9d65cbe16c3d0 · udtr-reference-1.1.2

Title
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Authors
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Year
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Identifiers
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00
Source URL
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00

History tracks record metadata and does not certify the state of the law.

4321d3363b8c3e73 · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00

481d6188e57f1c9c · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00

0900ed162f258084 · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00

83d9d65cbe16c3d0 · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.749166+00:00

Frozen-version metadata

Research dossiers and documentary relations

Florida State University

Utah State University

Anna S. Cohen

H.J. François Dengah

Molly Boeka Cannon

Oswaldo Medina-Ramírez

Source roles

Discovery source · https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2026.2694393

Discovery source · https://openalex.org/W7167793203

An authority link alone does not verify a legal claim. Abstracts and full texts remain subject to their source terms.

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.

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