Blood into Water: A Case of Social Justice

Blood into Water: A Case of Social Justice is a novel that weaves together the past and the present, from Mayan legends to contemporary stories of corporate greed. The story follows a mother and son, Sofia and Miguel Rodriguez, as they team with reporter Caleb Barthes to uncover a corporate scheme of exploitation. Barthes is sent to Nicaragua on an investigative assignment to look into water privatization plans. He learns far more than he expects about the environmental, political, and cultural issues surrounding ‘water.’ Perhaps more importantly, he learns about postcolonial exploitation and his own complicity, as well as the loss that can follow, not only for himself, but others.

This novel, inspired by the Bolivian Water Wars, offers students a creative text dealing with an environmental issue that leads to a social movement. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, rhetoricians, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, as well as scholars of business, organizational communication, interpersonal communication, cultural studies and environmental studies will easily find a place in the curriculum for this novel. It is both a stand-alone novel and a sequel to the popular novel, Zombie Seed and the Butterfly Blues: A Case of Social Justice.