Water (in) security: securing the right to water

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2179-0892.geousp.2021.182666

Keywords:

Right to water, Water insecurity, Gramsci, Political ecology

Abstract

This paper rereads debates over water security and insecurity through the tools of critical geographical scholarship. It seeks to demonstrate the value of such a critical perspective in achieving access to water for all. While rejecting a simplistic dismissal of mainstream discourses on water security, the paper notes the failure to adequately politicize the processes and relationships that reproduce water inequalities. Finding lessons in recent writings on political ecology, the hydro-social cycle and on the right to water, the paper concludes with a Gramscian claim to build from the fragmented but situated knowledges implicit in struggles to achieve democratic access to water

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Author Biographies

  • Alex John Loftus, King’s College London

    Dr Alex Loftus joined King’s in 2012 after spending 7 years at Royal Holloway as an RCUK Academic Fellow and then Lecturer in Geography. Prior to that, he studied at the University of Edinburgh, Queen’s University (Ontario) and the University of Oxford.

    Alex completed his DPhil at the latter, focusing on the political ecology of water in South Africa, while also teaching as a College Lecturer at St Peter’s College from 2004-2005. Having spent most of his life in a range of different Geography departments, he's grown to love the openness of the discipline.

    Alex is currently part of the editorial collective for the journal Antipode and sits on the editorial boards of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Antipode, Environmental Values, Geoforum, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) and, the Journal of Political Ecology.

    He is the Treasurer of the IJURR Foundation and has served as an external examiner for Masters programmes at University College London and the University of Manchester. 

     

  • Ana Cristina Augusto de Sousa, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sérgio Arouca

    Professora de História do IFRJ e pesquisadora do Departamento de Ciencias Sociais da ENSP/Fiocruz. Tradutora do artigo

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Published

2021-08-12

Issue

Section

Traduções

How to Cite

LOFTUS, Alex John. Water (in) security: securing the right to water. GEOUSP Espaço e Tempo (Online), São Paulo, Brasil, v. 25, n. 2, p. e-182666, 2021. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2179-0892.geousp.2021.182666. Disponível em: https://revistas.usp.br/geousp/article/view/182666.. Acesso em: 4 jun. 2024.