Abstract

Water inequities are widening around cities worldwide. Urban water injustices are shaped by gendered labor, privatization, and persisting colonial and racialized governance. Research has often identified exclusionary governance processes without offering alternative approaches. But how can urban governance processes be more inclusive and grassroots-led to enable meaningful engagement? This study investigates that question by analyzing a grassroots water justice project based in Turag River’s fishing communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Drawing from surveys of fisherfolk, interviews with fishers and advocates for water justice, the talk will reflect on community-led strategies to realize water justice. The study finds that advocates and organizers working alongside fishing communities and across scales are able to co-create models of democratic freshwater governance and meet urban fishing communities' material needs. The case of resurgent riverhood among Turag’s fishing communities offers insights for transforming unequal power relations and the exclusionary political economy of urban waters in other contexts.

About Speaker

Efadul Huq is an assistant professor of Environmental Science & Policy, and affiliate faculty of Urban Studies and the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Smith College.

Sponsored by: School of Architecture (UT-Austin) and South Asia Institute (UT-Austin)