An article by two of our RES PhD candidates has been republished in Maclean’s:
What Colin Kaepernick can teach us about citizenship
Opinion: Kaepernick’s protest, about what and who makes a team and a nation, can also be connected to environmental justice
You can read the article here:
Sameer Shah
Sameer Shah is a PhD candidate in Resource Management & Environmental Studies under the supervision of Professor Leila Harris. He examines the social, political, and natural dimensions of water governance and its impacts on marginalized agricultural communities in India. He is deeply interested in promoting efforts designed to strengthen community adaptation and rural livelihoods in response to shifts in water access. Through his work, he is involved with the Program on Water Governance and with the EDGES Research Group. In 2012, he graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (Honours Co-operative) from the University of Waterloo and earlier this year he completed his Master of Science degree at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability.
Sameer is also actively involved in water policy planning at UBC, in British Columbia, and across Canada. At UBC, he is currently a lead organizer of Water Ways: Understanding the Past, Navigating the Future, a major interdisciplinary workshop celebrating UBC’s 100th anniversary and bringing together leading water experts to advance a global water research agenda for the coming century. He also holds an 18-month appointment as the Pacific Regional Representative for the Canadian Water Network’s Student and Young Professional Committee of emerging water leaders. In 2014, he was selected as one of about 50 applicants from across Canada to participate in the Waterlution Transformative Leaders of the Future Program. As part of this program, he co-facilitated the first Canada-wide exercise in participatory water policy planning with the aim to inject the public’s creative visions into future water policy. Having travelled to over 20 countries and lived in multiple, Sameer is passionate about nature, cooking, photography, and hiking.
Scott McKenzie
Scott is a PhD candidate in Resource Management and Environmental Studies working under the supervision of Dr. Leila Harris. Before UBC, Scott completed a Bachelors of Arts in Environmental Studies, Philosophy, and American Studies at the University of Kansas and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa. Scott’s research and writing focuses how contending notions of scale and regulation affect water policy (within the water-energy-food nexus). His work considers the relationship between the natural environment, human development, and law. He has also worked as a development agent for the United States Peace Corps in Morocco, in the Cairo office of the Near East Foundation, as a private practice lawyer in New Orleans, and at the International Water Resources Association in Montpellier France.
At UBC Scott is a member of the EDGES research collaborative and the Program on Water Governance. Scott’s research will be involved with Experience of Shifting Water Governance: Comparative Study of Water Access, Narrative and Citizenship in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. This collaborative comparative research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and will focus on differing relationship between citizens in under served areas in Ghana and South Africa, their provision of water, and how they access and interact with the state to mediate this relationship.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison from flickr/ Creative Commons