Join us for Dr. Farhana Sultana Water Institute Distinguished Scholar Seminar

“Drowned out: Water, Climate, and Justice”

Co-hosted with the UF Department of Geography Colloquium Series

April 14, 2022; 3:00-4:00 PM via Zoom

Dr. Farhana Sultana is a Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. She also serves as Research Director of the Environmental Conflict and Collaboration Program and is a Senior Research Associate of the South Asia Center. Dr. Sultana is internationally recognized for her interdisciplinary research on political ecology, water governance, climate justice, development, sustainability, citizenship, human rights, transnational feminism and decolonization. You can learn more about her research on her personal webpage.

Seminar Abstract:

Climate change is effectively about water change – too much water, too little water, wrong time, wrong place. Megacities in monsoonal deltas face climate-related water crises in multitudinous ways. Drawing from empirical work in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where lack of urban planning, rapid urban growth, and social inequities reproduce various injustices and vulnerabilities across scales and sites, I discuss what climate adaptation means on the ground and how people’s perceptions of, attitudes towards, and lived experiences of climate change adaptation and flooding vary. As climate change alters hydrosocial cycles, climate apartheid is being observed where the elite navigate and appropriate the city very differently than others, thus alienating, marginalizing, and essentially drowning out up to a third of the city’s population. There is thus a need to focus on the politics of climate adaptation, instead of assuming it is inherently equitable or just.