Several students and staff from King’s Water, including Amiera Sawas, shared their work at the recent RGS-IBG Annual Conference in Exeter
King’s students and staff were well represented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society, with King’s Water research presented in multiple sessions.
PhD student Becca Farnum’s work with the Kuwait Dive Team was highlighted in a session on “Geographies of the Deep”.
The hydro spiral, a participatory tool interrogating social-natural interactions around hydrological movements developed in partnership with the London Water Research Group and University of East Anglia’s Water Security Research Centre, was debated in a double session on water knowledges and discourses convened by ‘hydro-citizen’ researchers from the University of the West of England.
A morning panel on the last day of a conference considered both of the above King’s Water presentations, along with several others taking place in “Wet Geographies” sessions. PhD student Becca Farnum was asked to contribute reflections on the interaction between art, geography, and water in its various forms. Her contributions included the idea that not all water is wet – take, for example, the ‘virtual water’ theorised by King’s Water Professor Tony Allan.
King’s Water PhD Student Kate Baker tells the story of Intrepid Explorers during a session on university engagement
A session sponsored by the Higher Education Research Group exploring questions of university community engagement in sustainability included the work of Intrepid Explorers, presented by PhD researcher Kate Baker. Ongoing teaching work in Norfolk at the Holt Hall Outdoor Education and Learning Centre that involves PhD students like Dan Mills was also included as a successful case study of partnerships between education and enterprise.
Several King’s Water students joined the RGS Coastal and Marine Research Group for an informal dinner Thursday evening, talking informally with other researchers from around the world on issues of fisheries, offshore renewable energies, and water-based ecosystems.
Maria Rusca from UNESCO-IHE is heading to King’s Geography Department this fall
The final afternoon of the conference included a session co-sponsored by King’s Geography and our partner institution UNESCO-IHE. King’s Water PhD student Amiera Sawas kicked things off with an overview of her doctoral research on water, sanitation, and hygiene in Pakistan. Maria Rusca, previously a Senior Lecturer in Water Governance at UNESCO-IHE who is now coming to the King’s Geography Department, introduced the technologies of water infrastructure systems in Lilongwe, Malawi, and examined how inequalities and poor public services co-produce each other. Klaas Schwartz, Associate Professor of Urban Water Governance at UNESCO-IHE, built on Maria’s presentation, exploring water users associations in Lilongwe and demonstrating the sad reality that the poorest and most disenfranchised people often pay the most for water. King’s Water Reader in Politics and Environment Daanish Mustafa spoke of how “water scarcity is a politically mediated reality”, especially in Jordan, while considering the politics of water users associations.
King’s Water Professor Daanish Mustafa speaks on the politics of water user associations in the Jordan Valley