This course – Water, Society, Ecology: Situated Knowledges of Flows and Models – will offer a space in which PhD students can integrate social theory with water and its flows through bodies, rocks, rivers, economies, politics and society. Crossing both disciplinary boundaries and hemispheres, the course aims to prepare graduates for ecological dialogue and environmental governance questions across North–South divides.

Attending to the centrality of water to colonial expansion, the neoliberal trend towards privatising water, and the relative invisibility of water in contemporary political economy, the course will work with the materiality of water – liquid flows around hard surfaces; flows through bodies; urban streams and oceans – to help students develop critical thinking skills about water, its many political, social and economic framings, and their enactment in water infrastructure. Students will also become familiar with international discourses and policies on water and development, specifically as outlined in Agenda 2030 of the United Nations and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Consisting of lectures, group discussions, video conferences and local field trips, the course will be taught simultaneously in Environmental Humanities South / Anthropology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and the Centre for Environmental Humanities / Anthropology at Aarhus University. Applications from PhD students interested in global North–South collaborations and water issues are welcomed, regardless of year of study or discipline.

Apply to take part by 17 September.