Sacred Waters: Exploring the Protection of Florida’s Fluid Landscapes

Dr. Victoria Machado’s presentation explores efforts to rethink Florida’s waterways. Utilizing the art of storytelling and drawing from the spirituality underlying the environmental movement, this presentation discusses present-day efforts to restore Florida’s waterways and investigates the motivations of environmentalists who love and advocate for these water bodies. Dr. Machado’s lecture draws from her six-year doctoral study of Florida’s environmental activists. Victoria Machado (she/her) is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at Rollins College, teaching Nature Writing and Nature Spirituality in the fall. While working on her Ph.D. in Religion and Nature at the University of Florida, she explored the underlying spirituality of Florida’s environmental activists. Her chapter, Bioregionalism, and the Catholic Worker Movement, was published in Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice in 2016.

This program accompanies Water/Ways Smithsonian exhibit on display at the Amelia Island Museum of History in Fernandina Beach. Water/Ways is part of the Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and Florida Humanities. Support for the exhibition and programming was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.