Journal of the Southwest Radio

In this powerful conversation, Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Southwest Center, speaks with Don Unger, recent PhD and environmental historian, about his groundbreaking research on uranium mining reclamation on the Navajo Nation. Unger discusses the ethics of storytelling, the balance between technical and spiritual approaches to healing the land, and his concept of Critical Reclamation Studies, a framework grounded in both Western policy and Navajo cosmology. Together, they explore the lived realities of land restoration, long drives and “cabin conversations,” and the wisdom of community leaders like Mr. Melvin Yazzie and Mr. Ernest Greyeyes. This episode opens a window into environmental justice, language, and the ongoing legacy of Cold War uranium mining in the Southwest.

In this episode, we talk with Roberto Wolfe, Mexico General Manager for the Northern Jaguar Project, a binational conservation effort based in Tucson, Arizona, and Sahuaripa, Sonora. NJP’s mission is to preserve and recover the world’s northernmost population of jaguars, an apex predator and keystone species whose survival supports entire ecosystems. Through partnerships with local ranchers, environmental education in Sonoran schools, and long-term scientific research --including extensive use of camera traps-- NJP protects over 56,000 acres of core jaguar habitat in the Sierra Madre foothills. Roberto grew up in Mexico City and began his journey into wildlife care as a teenage volunteer at Chapultepec Zoo. Trained in veterinary science, he brings deep knowledge of big cat biology and a passion for transboundary conservation. As jaguar habitats across the Americas shrink due to deforestation, development, and border infrastructure, Roberto helps lead efforts to ensure these elusive cats continue to roam from Sonora to southern Arizona.

Dr. Nicolás Pineda Pablos is a political scientist and researcher at the Colegio de Sonora, in Hermosillo, and one of Mexico’s foremost experts on urban water provision. Here, Dr. Pineda rings us up to speed on Hermosillo’s current water situation. Hermosillo, the state capital, is a Sonoran Desert city with close to one million people and faces profound climate-related challenges: a swiftly warming and drying environment, ongoing drought, and the threat of ever-more severe storms. Mexico’s north and northwest are currently experiencing some of the worst drought conditions in recorded history, with reservoir levels down by as much as 70 or 80% in some regions. Dr. Pineda is part of a diverse group of concerned citizens and experts called Hermosillo Cómo Vamos? – Hermosillo, How are We Doing? – working together to provide research-based solutions to this hairy problem. Dr. Pineda talks about all of this and much more, including the question of whether Hermosillo is facing a so-called Day Zero scenario, in which the city becomes unable to provide a basic reliable supply of potable water to its citizens.

Our guest for this episode of JSW Radio is Alex La Pierre. Alex is co-founding director, with his wife Rocío La Pierre, of the binational, Southern Arizona-based non-profit organization, Borderlandia. Borderlandia’s mission is to expand public understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands through a diversity of activities, including, especially, educational tours in southern Arizona and in Sonora, Mexico. I ask Alex about this work and about his view of public history more broadly. We also discuss how perceptions of the borderlands region seem to become more distorted the farther away one gets, and how Borderlandia’s work aims to combat this distorting effect of distance and politics. https://www.borderlandia.org/

Politics and Prison Ink in Arizona: A Map for Navigation in a World of Post-structural Violence, by Enrique Alan Olivares-Pelayo was published in the Autumn 2023 edition of Journal of the Southwest. In this episode, the author of the piece discusses his work on embodied carceral geographies, how the punishment of the prison system manifests in and on the bodies it ensnares. And that's a lot of people. One in five prisoners in the world is incarcerated in the United States. Tens of thousands of those people are in Arizona. The state spends over a billion dollar of our general budget on the correctional system; it´s the third highest cost, eight percent. Enrique was confined in that system for almost five years. In his work, he situates prison, the constellation of institutions that create the penal complexes at every level of government, including those which retain people on behalf of national immigration and customs enforcement, as a landscape of structural violence. His piece on the Journal looks at the tattoos that many acquire during their time locked up as visible representations of their experiences. Help us improve the content of JSW Radio taking this brief survey: https://uarizona.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3fTagjmStzrz4EK

This episode is a companion to our November 2024 piece about invasive plants and land management in the Sonoran Desert. It features three practitioners of Indigenous cultural and ecological preservation – Karl Hoerig who works for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe; Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan whose academic work captures Tohono O’odham history; and Raeshaun Ramon, who serves as a Saguaro National Park Ranger. JSW is grateful for their perspectives, and for the chance to broaden the land management conversation— in part by using the Saguaro cactus as a case study for key considerations about how humans exist within desert ecologies.

The Sonoran Desert is renowned for its iconic, endemic species—and home to many people who are dedicated to studying and preserving them. Invasive species present a threat to desert ecologies that is growing along with globalized plant trade, climate change and resource depletion. Harmful, prolific plants displace native species and disrupt ecological processes like fire regimes and food production cycles. Today’s episode is part one of an expansive conversation about invasive species and how they relate to regional land management strategies in general. Patricia Schwartz talks with Kim Franklin, Associate Director for Conservation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and with Brian Powell, Division Manager in Pima County's Conservation Lands and Resources Department.

In episode 3 of the Flood Justice en las Fronteras podcast doctoral candidate Lucas Belury interviews Dr. Caroline Tracey, a geographer, journalist, and author of the forthcoming book Salt Lakes (W.W. Norton, 2026). In this episode we discuss the politics of the 1954 Falcon Dam (Presa Falcón) in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo river. This dam provided irrigation water and hydro-electricity to both Texas and Tamaulipas, yet flooded and displaced thousands of border residents.

In episode 3 of the Flood Justice en las Fronteras podcast doctoral candidate Lucas Belury interviews Dr. Caroline Tracey, a geographer, journalist, and author of the forthcoming book Salt Lakes (W.W. Norton, 2026). In this episode we discuss the politics of the 1954 Falcon Dam (Presa Falcón) in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo river. This dam provided irrigation water and hydro-electricity to both Texas and Tamaulipas, yet flooded and displaced thousands of border residents.

This episode of JSW Radio features an interview with Scottsdale resident (and the host’s brother-in-law) Justin Driscoll, who tells the story of his rattlesnake bite experience in 2021. Driscoll and a friend were hiking in Aravaipa Canyon, east of Phoenix and north of Tucson. Aravaipa is one of the few spots in central and southern Arizona with a perennial stream, and, because of this, the wildlife there is abundant and diverse, including the Western Diamondback rattlesnake that would alter the course of Justin’s journey. Hosted and produced by Jeff Banister; edited by Carlos Quintero.

Beverely Elliott is the Executive Director of the African American Museum of Southern Arizona, the only museum of its kind in the state. In this episode she gives us a tour of the young museum's exhibitions, tracing Black history in the Sonoran Desert.

This series explores the historical foundations of the American Southwest and their effect on urban issues today, including the region's worsening housing crisis. Housing segregation was made illegal in 1968, but its effects remain visible in Southwest cities. A coalition of researchers, advocacy groups and community members recently completed the Mapping Racist Covenants (MRC) Project, which identified exclusionary language still present in the contracts of many Tucson neighborhoods. Though about a third of residents lived in an area with racist restrictions at the time of the study, this work helped spur state-level changes to make removing discriminatory language easier. This episode primarily features Dr. Jason Jurjevich, Director of the MRC Project and assistant professor at the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. Dr. Jurjevich dives into the MRC project, as well as his other work evaluating plumbing poverty in the US and the use of Census data as a policymaking tool. Music by Ketsa: Innuendos

Dr. Michelle Berry is a historian and professor with dual appointments in the History and Gender & Women's Studies Departments at the University of Arizona. She is involved with the Public History Collaborative and passionate about creating engaging and accessible pathways for everyone to experience history in the making. Patricia Schwartz speaks with Dr. Berry about her critical frameworks, history as a practice, and the importance of understanding how more-than-human actors shape our histories. This interview kicks off a series of episodes focusing on historical forces, policies and movements that have shaped Southern Arizona today.

Flood Justice in the US-Mexico Borderlands: Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Delta (In English) by Southwest Center

Flood Justice in the US-Mexico Borderlands: Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Delta (En Español) by Southwest Center

Flood Justice in the US-Mexico Borderlands: Ambos Nogales (En Español) by Southwest Center

Journal of the Southwest Radio is proud to present this series about flood justice in the US-Mexico Borderlands. Hosted by Lucas Belury, these bilingual episodes address the environmental, demographic, and political factors shaping the paradoxical issue of flooding in arid lands. The first episode, an interview with Dr. Adriana Zuniga-Terán, discusses green infrastructure, equitable policy and flood vulnerability in the border cities of ambos Nogales. Lucas Belury is a second-year Ph.D. student in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. His research challenges environmental racism by integrating remote sensing for flood detection with the lived experience of marginalized Latinx communities along the US-Mexico border. Utilizing the human-centered design concept of co-production, in which research and community members are equal contributors of knowledge production, he collaborates with community-based flood justice advocacy organizations in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and Northeastern Mexico. Through these partnerships, his research supports community-based organizations in their challenge against environmental racism and structural inequality.

The 2023 edition of Tucson Meet Yourself honored the Corrido and one of its most prominent researchers and writers, Dr. Celestino Fernandez. He was interviewed by Dr. Estevan Azcona, musicologist and associated research scientist at the Southwest Center, as local corridistas played some of his compositions. “Running tales” inspired by real events, Corridos amplify voices often muffled by dominant culture. A composer of over 50 corridos, Fernandez recently released Corridos de Celestino, a double album featuring corridos on immigration, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and the massacre of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, among other events.

Gabriel Dozal discusses his debut collection, The Border Simulator, where the U.S.-Mexico border is redefined as a place of invention; crossing it becomes a matter of simulation. The poems accompany Primitivo, who attempts to cross the border, an imaginary boundary that becomes more real and challenging as his journey progresses; and his sister, Primitiva, who lives an alternate, static life as an exploited migrant worker in la fabrica. He chats with Taylor about the experience of writing and living the borderlands, and shares the process of translating the work, completed by Natasha Tiniacos. Gabriel is a writer and educator from El Paso, Texas. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona and he is a poetry editor for DIAGRAM. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Iowa Review, Guernica, The Brooklyn Rail, The Literary Review, The Volta, and elsewhere.

Dr. Bellante is a geographer whose research and teaching focus on food justice, food systems, and global environmental change. Bellante lived and worked in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas for six years before returning to the U.S. to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in human-environmental geography. Her research centered on small-scale Chiapas corn farmers struggling with a changing climate and neoliberal economic policies. Dr. Bellante teaches several undergraduate courses, from an introduction to critical food studies to food justice, ethics and activism. She also co-leads the university’s Food Systems Research Lab with Dr. Gigi Owen, staff scientist with Climate Assessment for the Southwest.