Rossella Alba is a postdoctoral researcher at the Geography Department and IRI THESys at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research explores socio-ecological inequalities through the lens of governance and infrastructure, with a focus on watery spaces—rivers, dams, urban water systems, and marine environments. Her research develops at the intersection between critical environmental geography, feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS), and infrastructural studies. She engages in collaborative forms of inquiry — both within and beyond university walls — to cultivate co-learning, mutual understanding, and speculative imaginations. At IRI THESys, she coordinates the “Water security for whom?” project, investigating the role of modelling in reconfiguring inequalities around multi-purpose dams in Colombia. Rossella previously worked on the WaterPower project at Trier University, where her PhD focused on water inequalities in Accra, Ghana. She has also conducted research in Mozambique, Ethiopia and Italy.
Kate Bayliss, Research Associate at the Department of Economics at SOAS University of London, works in political economy. For the past two decades she has worked extensively on privatisation, financialisation and social equity, in the UK and the global South. Her work centres on inclusion in essential services and access to physical and social infrastructure, notably water, energy and health and social care. She has a particular focus on the systemic structures that underpin social outcomes. In 2020, with Ben Fine she published A Guide to the Systems of Provision Approach: Who Gets What, How and Why London: Palgrave.
Debjani Bhattacharyya holds the Chair for the History of the Anthropocene at the University of Zürich, where she leads research at the intersection of legal, environmental, and climate history. Her scholarship explores how colonial and postcolonial legal and economic structures have shaped environmental transformations, particularly in South Asia. Her acclaimed book, Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta (Cambridge University Press, 2018), examines how legal experimentation in the 18th and 19th centuries reconfigured urban land and waterscapes in the Bengal Delta. She is currently working on Climate Futures’ Past: Insurance, Law and Meteorology in the Indian Ocean World, which investigates how marine insurance markets influenced colonial climate sciences and weather knowledge. Bhattacharyya directs the Digital History Lab and is a non-resident fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been supported by institutions such as the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Social Science Research Council. (Credit Anita Affentranger for the portrait)
Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy in the School of Politics and International Relations at Nottingham University/UK. Moreover, he is Co-Director of the independent Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ). He is author of Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis (with Adam D. Morton) (CUP, 2018) and Fighting for water: Resisting privatization in Europe (Zed Books, 2021).
Roland Brunner studied history and political science, worked for many years as a journalist and in international cooperation (education, media development), and was active politically in the peace movement. 2013-2023, he was a campaigner and organizer with the trade union for public service employees VPOD in Zurich, Switzerland. In this function he also did a successful referendum campaign against a new water law that would allow privatization of services. For the Blue Community, he coordinates the international Blue University cluster and and serves as the content editor for the website of the Blue Community Network
Isadora Cruxên studies the political economy of sustainable development, with a focus on Latin America and Brazil. Her work is broadly interested in the relationship between contemporary capitalist development and democratic politics. Her interdisciplinary research engages debates on state-market relations, financialisation and business power, privatisation, and forms of political mobilisation such as data activism. She is also interested in participatory forms of research and knowledge production.
She currently explores these issues though projects on the financing and governance of infrastructures like water and sanitation, on impact investing, and on activism against gender-based violence. As co-lead of the project Data Against Feminicide (https://datoscontrafeminicidio.net/en/home/), she contributed to the participatory development of AI-based tools that support activist monitoring of feminicide across different contexts. This work was awarded an Honorary Mention from the European Commission’s 2025 S+T+ARTS Prize (https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/data-against-feminicide/), which recognises innovation at the intersection of society, technology, and the arts.
Cruxên holds a PhD in Political Economy, Development and Planning (2022) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Master in City Planning (2016) from MIT, and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science (2011) from the University of Brasília, Brazil.
Sampurna Das teaches Sociology at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology- Delhi, India. Her doctoral research explores the intersections of water governance, agrarian relations, and environmental justice, with a focus on river islands in northeastern India. She is particularly engaged with debates on sustainable development, environmental justice, precarious livelihoods, and the rights of marginalized communities in South Asia. Her work has been published in The Sociological Review, Journal of Ethnic and Minority Studies, Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies, and other peer-reviewed journals.
Rohan D’Souza is Professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University (Japan). His research interests are focussed on environmental history, water management and control policies in South Asia, studies on the emerging anxieties over climate change and the politics of Nature in the Anthropocene. In his monograph titled Drowned and Dammed (2006), D’Souza discusses radical landscape transformations in nineteenth century Eastern India that were effected, in the main, by an unprecedented change in river control strategies. Much of his research since then has sought to explain and highlight how much of the contemporary politics over ecological change are deeply informed by our historical pasts.
Gemma Gasseau is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Scuola Normale Superiore (Firenze, Italy). With an interdisciplinary background, she researches (global) economic structures, in their contradictions and conditions for transformation. Her research interests include water governance, state transformations, eco-social policies and environmental politics. She has published articles on Globalizations, on remunicipalisation and the meaning of public, and the Review of International Political economy, on the political economy of water.
Léo Heller served as the second Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, appointed by the Human Rights Council in November 2014. He began his mandate in December 2014 and has since contributed significantly to global advocacy for the human rights to water and sanitation. Currently a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, Heller previously held various academic and leadership roles at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, including Professor of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering. He has a rich background in public policy, environmental health, and water and sanitation issues, with a focus on interdisciplinary research. Heller has authored numerous publications on the technological, health, and policy aspects of water and sanitation. He is an advocate for social movements related to human rights, particularly in Latin America. Heller holds a PhD in Epidemiology and has conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford.
Deborah James is a Professor at LSE who specializes in the anthropology of economy. Her 2015 book Money from Nothing: Indebtedness and Aspiration in South Africa explores the dynamics surrounding South Africa’s national project of financial inclusion—dubbed ‘banking the unbanked’—which aimed to extend credit to black South Africans. In her 2025 book Clawing Back: A New Anthropology of Redistribution in Precarious Times, she looks at South Africa and the UK, exploring how people patchwork together a livelihood from the triad of debt, wages, welfare, and investigating the role of advisers, law clinics and small-scale brokers in helping people to gain (or keep hold of) their ‘rightful share’. Her work is characterized by a commitment to empirical research and a critical engagement with contemporary political and economic issues. She is actively engaged in debates on social justice, policy and governance.
Meera Karunananthan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, situated on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. With nearly two decades of experience in environmental and social justice organizing, her research focuses on urban hydro-social conflicts in the Global South, particularly examining the racialized, class-based, and gendered impacts of privatization and financialization of water systems. Drawing from feminist political ecology and anti-colonial scholarship, she investigates how market-based solutions to climate change and drought reproduce power asymmetries and legitimize the ongoing dispossession of historically marginalized communities. Before joining Carleton, she served as the director of the Blue Planet Project, where she supported trans-local organizing aimed at building connections between local struggles for water justice around the world through research, popular education and collective action. She continues to support this work as a board member of the Blue Planet Project. She also sits on the board of Peace Brigades International Canada, a global movement of land, water, and human rights defenders. Her research is rooted in community-engaged and movement-driven knowledge production.
Emanuele Lobina, Associate Professor, Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) Dr. Emanuele Lobina specialises in the political economy of water service reform across the Global North and South. His research challenges conventional approaches to public service governance while advancing more equitable and sustainable alternatives.Emanuele’s work critically examines water remunicipalisation trends worldwide, assessing their potential to enhance service quality. He provides evidence-based critiques of mainstream water economics and, as a contribution to the activities of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, is currently analysing the policy recommendations of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.His innovative methodological approach combines historical analysis and applied ethics into critical realist modelling to evaluate how ownership structures impact service outcomes across water, energy, and transport sectors.Emanuele is developing alternatives to New Public Management by mapping governance successes and failures, identifying inconsistencies in theories of public service reform, and articulating ethical alternatives. This contributes to an emerging “real-world economics” of public services—historically grounded and oriented towards socio-ecological justice.
Alex Loftus is a Professor in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. His interdisciplinary research examines the intersections of environmental change, social inequality, and political economy, with a particular focus on water systems. Loftus has co-authored influential works such as Discovering Political Ecology, which challenges Anglo-American narratives by incorporating diverse global perspectives . His research delves into the financialization of water infrastructure, exploring how market-driven approaches impact public services and social equity. Loftus has also contributed to critical discussions on the right to water, analyzing how universal claims intersect with local governance and social struggles . His work emphasizes the importance of understanding the political dimensions of environmental issues and advocates for transformative approaches to water governance that prioritize justice and equity.
Lyla Mehta is a sociologist and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. Her research addresses the politics of water, displacement, and climate change, with a focus on gender, rights, and resource governance. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in India and southern Africa, examining how marginalized communities navigate issues of scarcity and uncertainty. Professor Mehta has served as an advisor to various UN agencies and has been actively involved in advocacy and policy work related to water justice and human rights.
Madelaine Moore is a member of the Environment and Society Group at UNSW, teaching in the Masters of Environmental Management and Bachelor of Environmental Humanities programs. Her research intersects international political economy and global environmental policy, focusing on social-ecological crises and the transformations needed to address them. She specializes in water governance politics, eco-social policies, and their links to financialization, social reproduction, and labour.
Her 2023 book, Water Struggles as Resistance to Neoliberal Capitalism, explores water conflicts in Australia and Ireland and was shortlisted for the BISA IPEG book prize. Madelaine has published extensively in journals such as New Political Economy and Globalizations. She has consulted for the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water and Sanitation and is a founding member of Just Water Futures, a network focused on water financing and governance.
Madelaine holds a PhD from Kassel University and has previously held research and teaching positions in Germany and at the Global Labour University.
Andrea Muehlebach is a Professor of Maritime Anthropology and Cultures of Water at the University of Bremen in Germany. She is the author of “A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe” where she explores how water movements mobilize to challenge the financialization of water utilities and to reclaim water as a public good and commons.
Marcela Olivera is the Director of the Blue Planet Project and a water commons organizer based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Since 2004 she has been developing and consolidating an inter-American citizens’ network on water justice named Red VIDA. She sits on the coordinating committee of the Platform for Public and Community Partnerships of the Americas (PAPC) and was previously the BPP’s Regional Coordinator for Latin America.
Michael Pryke is a professor at the Open University. His research critically examines the financialization of urban infrastructure, with a particular focus on water systems in the Global South. Pryke has explored how global institutional investors actively construct value in water infrastructure projects, often leading to financial subordination of local communities. Their work highlights the complex interplay between global capital flows and local water governance, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of how financial practices shape access to essential resources. Pryke’s contributions extend to the broader cultural economy, where he investigates the visual and auditory dimensions of financial markets and their implications for economic practices. His interdisciplinary approach provides valuable insights into the socio-economic dynamics influencing water governance and urban development.
Jeremy Schmidt is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography at Queen Mary University of London. His interdisciplinary research integrates anthropology, geography, and philosophy to examine the ethics and governance of water in the Anthropocene. Dr. Schmidt’s book, Water: Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity, traces the intellectual history of American water management philosophies and their global influence, highlighting how these frameworks shape contemporary water governance and contribute to global inequalities . His work emphasizes the need for a pluralistic approach to water ethics, advocating for the inclusion of diverse cultural and ecological perspectives in water management practices.
Leonard Shang-Quartey is the Blue Planet Project’s Regional Coordinator for Africa. He is a public policy and management expert and water rights activist based in Ghana with links to several international human right to water movements. He has expertise and experience in water sector policy analysis and lobbying, the formation and coordination of advocacy networks, and the development and dissemination of advocacy messages. He is currently one of two civil society representatives on UN Habitats’ Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance Steering Committee and coordinates the Africa Water Justice Network.
Lucía Wolff Ruiz is an international master’s student is originally from Spain. She has completed a bachelor’s degree in social sciences at Düsseldorf University in 2024 and are currently pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at Bielefeld University. Alongside their studies, Lucia works as a research assistant focusing on topics related to global governance, social policy, and sociological theory.
Rachel Woods is a graduate student at Carleton University’s Institute of Political Economy, specializing in food systems, water justice, and decolonial feminist theory. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Global and International Studies with a specialization in Global Development and a minor in Communication and Media Studies from Carleton. Her research interests encompass power asymmetries, food sovereignty, social reproduction, climate change, social impact investing, privatization, and community-based alternatives. Currently, Rachel serves as a research assistant focusing on water justice and the financialization of water. Additionally, she contributes to the Blue Planet Project, an NGO dedicated to water justice advocacy, where she assists with social media and outreach efforts.
Margreet Zwarteveen is a professor of Water Governance at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education and University of Amsterdam. Dr Zwarteveen holds a professorial affiliation with the University of Amsterdam. Trained as an irrigation engineer and social scientist at Wageningen University, her interdisciplinary research examines the intersection of water policies, gender equity, and social justice. Dr. Zwarteveen investigates how water distribution systems and technologies, such as drip irrigation, influence power dynamics and social relations. Her work emphasizes the need for inclusive governance structures that consider the socio-political contexts of water management. She has contributed to various academic publications and is involved in international research initiatives addressing water governance challenges.
