CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION
CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION
CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION
.png){kind=logo}
CEDLA Researchers
Prof. dr. Rutgerd Boelens
RESEARCH THEME: POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Rutgerd Boelens is Professor 'Political Ecology of Water in Latin America' holding a part-time special chair with CEDLA and the University of Amsterdam (Fac. Humanities). He also works as Professor Water Governance and Social Justice at Wageningen University (Environmental Sciences Group, Water Resources Management), and is Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Peru and the Central University of Ecuador. He directs the international Justicia Hídrica /Water Justice alliance, engaged with comparative research and training on water accumulation, conflict and civil society action. See more details at the personal page at UvA website +INFO
RESEARCH INTEREST
His research focuses on water rights, legal pluralism, cultural politics, social mobilization and political ecology, in Latin America and Europe. He worked as action-researcher on rural development in the Andean countries, and before founding Justicia Hídrica (www.justiciahidrica.or) he directed the international Water Law and Indigenous Rights alliance WALIR, and several large NUFFIC and NWO research programs on water governance and environmental justice in Latin America. Currently he also coordinates the intercontinental RIVERHOOD (ERC) and RIVER COMMONS programs (www.movingrivers.org). The research networks include scholars, professionals, activists, and grassroots leaders working on ‘governmentality’ in hydrosocial territories and the politics of NRM reforms, intervention, water grabbing and social mobilization. These entwine social and natural sciences. Results are published, among others, in the book series Water & Society (Agua y Sociedad) for which he is the scientific editor, and which integrates several Latin American publishers (as IEP, Abyayala, CBC, Fondo Editorial PUCP).
Rutgerd Boelens graduated in environmental sciences (M.Sc) and social sciences (Ph.D., 2008) at Wageningen University, both cum laude. His PhD thesis The Rules of the Game and the Game of the Rules. Normalization and Resistance in Andean Water Control was awarded ‘Best PhD dissertation’ among Dutch university faculties working in the fields of International Development, over the years 2007-2008.
Water Justice in Latin America: The Politics of Difference, Equality, and Indifference
Inaugural Lecture uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar Political Ecology of Water in Latin America
aan de Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen van de Universiteit van Amsterdam
op donderdag 21 mei 2015 door Rutgerd Boelens
Publications
2021
Shah, E., Vos, J., Veldwisch, G. J., Boelens, R., & Duarte-Abadía, B. (2021). Environmental Justice Movements in Globalizing Networks: A Critical Discussion on Social Resistance against Large Dams. Journal of Peasant Studies, 48(5), 1008–1032. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2019.1669566 [details]
2020
Dupuits, E., Baud, J., Boelens, R., de Castro, F., & Hogenboom, B. (2020). Scaling up but losing out? Water commons' dilemmas between transnational movements and grassroots struggles in Latin America. Ecological Economics, 172, [106625]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106625
2019
Baud, J. M., Boelens, R. A., & Damonte, G. (2019). Nuevos capitalismos y transformaciones territoriales en la Región Andina. Estudios Atacameños, 63, 195-208. https://doi.org/10.22199/issn.0718-1043-2019-0033
Baud, M., Boelens, R., de Castro, F., Hogenboom, B., Klaufus, C., Koonings, K., & Ypeij, A. (2019). Commoning Xela: Negotiating collective spaces around a Central American intermediate city. Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 108, 267-279. https://doi.org/10.32992/erlacs.10584
Riverhood and River Commons are two CEDLA-WUR research programs involving 15 PhDs, 40 Master students, and grassroots, activist and academic partners
“RIVERHOOD. Living Rivers and the New Water Justice Movements: From Dominating Waterscapes to the Rights of Nature
It is a 5-years project that will study ‘riverhood’ and ‘translocal water justice movements’ in Europe and Latin America. This project will be coordinated from the Wageningen University (WUR) with an strong bridge to CEDLA-UvA. The proposal counted also with invaluable inputs from many of the CEDLA's research team. We are specially glad because the proposal’s evaluation was graded as ‘excellent’ and ‘exceptional’.
The project will start in Spring 2021. The project includes 4 fully financed PhDs and the means to develop, among other activities, ‘environmental justice labs’ in The Netherlands, Spain, Ecuador and Colombia, with a large number of grassroots, academic and policy-making partners. The total grant is 2 million euros.
River Commons: action-research with partners in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe