How should we think of water governance in politically, socially, environmentally and economically marginalized landscapes of a rapidly urbanizing world where ecological calamities are becoming more uncertain and intense? Addressing water access issues across various scales—national, provincial, and local—requires examining how laws, policies, and governance structures control and manage water resources. To understand the territorialities of governance boundaries of spaces and their definitions, laws and everyday practices, and creation of inequality using a gendered framework is required. Boundaries are created at many levels – some of which are stark and many which overlap. Everyday manifestations of the law at the local level enable or disable access to state provisioning systems creating unequal access.
The seminar, “Rethinking Territorialities of Water Governance in a Water-Scarce World”, speaks to claim-making for governance mechanism drawing from Right to the City in the face of climate extremes in the Global South. Pushing for water sovereignty to draw attention from the state to release burdens of water accessibility of the communities and interfere with the private water supplies to prevent water from becoming a purely economic good.
Date: Friday, September 27, 2024
Time: 6:00 – 8:30 pm IST (High-tea at 5:30 pm IST) | 8:30 – 11:00 am EST
Venue: Lecture Hall 1, India International Center (Annex), New Delhi and on Zoom
Chair and Moderator:
Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Panelists:
• Durba Biswas, Independent Researcher
• Matthew Gandy, Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge
• Rinan Shah, Mittal Institute India Fellow 2023 – 2024
• Suchismita Das, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the Centre for Inter-Asian Research, Ahmedabad University
(Please note: Diane Davis and Matthew Gandy will be joining the seminar virtually.)
