Staff Profile:Dr Jessica Budds

Name:

Dr Jessica Budds

Job Title:

Lecturer in Environment & Development

Responsibilities:

Teaching: Society and Nature, History and Philosophy of Geography.

Plus contributions to Human Geography Skills and Concepts, Team Projects, Geography Undergraduate Dissertation, Extractive Industries, The Environment and Developing Societies, Graduate School Reading Researcher Development Programme

Areas of Interest:

• Political ecologies of water in the global South: water and sanitation services, irrigation, mining and water resources, water-related ecosystem services
• Neoliberalism, nature and uneven development
• The production of integrated social and ecological knowledge

PhD supervision:

I am currently supervising two PhD studies:

• 'Assessment and management of floodplain meadows in Britain', Department of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems and Department of Geography, The Open University.
• 'Power, peasant livelihoods and payment for watershed environmental services in the Andes', Irrigation and Water Engineering Group, Wageningen University.

I would be interested in supervising PhD students with interests in one or more of: political ecology, water resources, mining, energy, urban environments, interdisciplinary social-physical environmental studies, and Latin America.

Research groups / Centres:

• Human Environments Research Group
• Walker Institute

Key facts:

I have an interdisciplinary background in environment and development, with a focus on water resources and a regional specialisation in Latin America. Before joining Reading in 2011, I spent five years in the Geography Department at the Open University, where I contributed to the production of a third year distance learning course on international environmental politics and policy. Prior to that, I worked on urban environment and development issues in a number of roles, including environmental education and DFID-funded policy research. I went on to do my doctorate in the in the School of Geography at Oxford, and was also a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Environment and Development at Manchester. I have spent over five years in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Peru), and am fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese. I have also worked in Bangladesh, India, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Zambia.

Research Interests

My key area of interest is the relationship between social and environmental change in the global South, in particular South America. I'm interested in how changing lives, landscapes and discourses can be better understood by mobilising political ecology theories to explore the role of (unequal) power relations in co-producing nature and society over space and time.

Much of my recent research has investigated the application of 'neoliberal' strategies to natural resources management and its implications for low-income groups and environmental management. In particular, I have examined urban water privatisation, water rights markets and payments for watershed services, and have shown that the poorest and most marginal water users are those who are least likely to benefit from market-based approaches.

I am also interested in the potential of interdisciplinary work across the social and natural sciences to approach socio-nature.

I am currently working on the implications of the increased demand for water for the expanding mining industry in the Andean region, focusing on the case of Peru. In Peru, meeting growing demand for water for mining is a key challenge because natural supplies are limited, most existing resources are in use and some local (indigenous) people are opposed to the use of water for mining. Rather than regarding water solely as an input to, or as a resource that is negatively impacted by, mining, the aim of this project is to examine how, through control over water, mineral extraction shapes Andean lives, livelihoods and landscapes in particular ways. In this way, the research is examining the ways in which water management is organised, influenced and disputed between different users, such as mines, government bodies, NGOs and communities at the national level as well as in the southernmost part of the country, where several large mines are in operation, recently established or under development. More information is available here: www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/andean-waterscapes/

Professional affiliations:

• Association of American Geographers
• Latin American Studies Association
• Royal Geographical Society / Institute for British Geographers

Publications:

Y

Jump to: 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003

Number of items: 10.

2012

• Budds, J. and Hinojosa, L. (2012) Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru. Water Alternatives, 5 (1). pp. 119-137. ISSN 1965-0175

2011

• Budds, J. (2011) Relaciones sociales de poder y la produccion de paisajes hidricos. In: Boelens, R., Cremers, L. and Zwarteveen, M. (eds.) Justicia Hidrica: Acumulacion, Conflicto y Accion Social. Fondo Editorial , Lima , pp. 59-69. ISBN 9789972513121
• Budds, J. (2011) Hydrologic modeling. In: Dym, J. and Offen, K. (eds.) Mapping Latin America: A Cartographic Reader. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 9780226618210

2010

• Budds, J. (2010) Water rights, mining and indigenous groups in Chile’s Atacama. In: Boelens, R., Getches, D. H. and Guevara Gil, J. A. (eds.) Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity. Earthscan , London, pp. 197-211. ISBN 9781844076765

2009

• Budds, J. (2009) Contested H2O: science, policy and politics in water resources management in Chile. Geoforum, 40 (3). pp. 418-430. ISSN 0016-7185 doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.12.008
• Budds, J. (2009) The 1981 Water Code: the impacts of private tradable water rights on peasant and indigenous communities in Northern Chile. In: Alexander, W. L. (ed.) Lost in the Long Transition: The Struggle for Social Justice in Neoliberal Chile. Lexington Books, Lanham, pp. 35-56. ISBN 9780739118641

2008

• Budds, J. (2008) Whose scarcity? The hydrosocial cycle and the changing waterscape of La Ligua river basin, Chile. In: Goodman, M. K., Boykoff, M. T. and Evered, K. T. (eds.) Contentious Geographies: Environment, Meaning, Scale. Ashgate Studies in Environmental Policy and Practice . Ashgate , Aldershot, pp. 59-68. ISBN 9780754649717

2005

• Budds, J., Teixeira, P. and SEHAB, n./a. (2005) Ensuring the right to the city: pro-poor housing, urban development and tenure legalization in São Paulo, Brazil. Environment and Urbanization, 17 (1). pp. 89-114. ISSN 1746-0301 doi: 10.1177/095624780501700105

2004

• Budds, J. (2004) Power, nature and neoliberalism: the political ecology of water in Chile. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25 (3). pp. 322-342. ISSN 1467-9493 doi: 10.1111/j.0129-7619.2004.00189.x

2003

• Budds, J. and McGranahan, G. (2003) Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Environment and Urbanization, 15 (2). pp. 87-114. ISSN 1746-0301 doi: 10.1177/095624780301500222

This list was generated on Sat May 26 20:19:45 2012 BST.

Further Publications

United Nations Habitat (2006) Meeting Development Goals in Small Urban Centres: Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities 2006, London: Earthscan; Chapter 8: 'Integrated Water Resources Management and the Provision of Water Supply and Sanitation in Small Urban Centres', pp. 225-244.

Budds, Jessica with Paulo Teixeira and SEHAB (2005) 'Ensuring the right to the city: pro-poor housing, urban development and tenure legalization in São Paulo, Brazil', Environment and Urbanization 17 (1): 89-113.

Budds, Jessica (2004) 'Power, nature and neoliberalism: the political ecology of water in Chile', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25 (3): 322-342.

Budds, Jessica (2003) 'El acceso a los recursos de agua de los agricultores en el valle de La Ligua, Chile', Revista de Derecho Administrativo Económico 2: 371-379.

Budds, Jessica and Gordon McGranahan (2003) 'Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America', Environment and Urbanization 15 (2): 87-113.

United Nations Habitat (2003) Water and Sanitation in the World's Cities: Local Actions for Global Goals, London: Earthscan; Chapter 5 with Gordon McGranahan: 'Changing Perspectives and Roles in Urban Water and Sanitation Provision - Privatization and Beyond', pp. 158-192.

Qualifications:

MA Hons (Glasgow), MSc (London), DPhil (Oxford)