Suraya Fazel-Ellahi
Email:suraya.fazel-ellahi@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
BSc Environmental and Geographical Science and Sociology, University of Cape Town, 2001-2003.
BSc (Hons) Human Geography, University of Cape Town, 2004.
MPhil (Development Studies), University of Cape Town, 2006-2009.
Water, Power and Reverse Osmosis Technology: water crises and solutions in the coastal towns of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Supervisors: Maria Kaika and Erik Swyngedouw.
Research interests
Society-nature relations, Urban Political Ecology, Relational Ontologies, Dialectical Marxism, Questioning technology, Co-production of socio-nature within capitalism.
The research project is concerned with an examination of water governance to include political processes, social power, actor relations, and the mediation of competing interests; thereby expanding the understanding of water as circulating through the material as well as social and political spheres. As such, the project will be located within a political ecology framework which has argued for this ‘third way of analysis’, coining the term ‘hydro-social’ cycle. It is held that such an analysis is valuable for its capacity to offer a means to move beyond a-political and a-historical representations of water access, pollution and scarcity[1] and to conceive of alternatives beyond technical and managerial debates and related fixes.
In particular, the research will focus on the enrolment of technology as a materialised embodiment of social power relations, and as a materialised mediator between water and the urban environment. The focus on water technology, as a route through which to examine the complex reality of water supply within contemporary capitalist society, is significant as water and other networked infrastructure give structure to the entire process of metabolism[2] in industrial societies, thereby constituting one of the most important interfaces between nature and society (Monstadt, 2009:1926). Furthermore, he research is being carried out with the aim of advancing existing understandings of society, nature and technology relations, with a focus on cities of the South. It is intended that this would contribute to debates on the politics of infrastructure developments, distribution and fragmentation (see Gandy, 2006; 2008; Kooy and Bakker, 2008; McFarlane, 2008a; 2008b).The empirical study is concerned with the case of the adoption of Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) technology – desalination and waste water reclamation - in three towns in the Western Cape province of South Africa; namely Mossel Bay, Knysna and Sedgefield; in response to a drought which began in the region in 2009. The research seeks to carry out a comparative study in these towns with the aim of moving the debate beyond a focus on the purely technical dimensions, toward an examination of the political dimensions and power relations informing the selection of the R.O. technology.[1] This is not to disregard the significance of concerns about or the actual existence of water scarcity but to examine the social power relations informing it
[2] ‘Metabolism’ is understood in the sense of the original German word Stoffwechsel , implying the circulation, exchange, and transformation of material elements. The urban metabolism produces qualitative changes in cities and distinct socioecological assemblages (Swyngedouw, 2006:27).