leah gibbs
I am a Lecturer at the
University of Wollongong’s School of Earth & Environmental
Sciences. I returned to Australia in June 2010 after working as a
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow for about
four years. My current research focuses on the cultures and politics of
water.
Current Projects
Environmental knowledge production and water governance in the global south
Contemporary environmental change presents a suite of new challenges for environmental governance (the set of principles and institutions that guide relationships between humans and nature). Water and water-based livelihoods are particularly vulnerable. Increasingly, water is managed across jurisdictions, bringing into play a range of potentially competing interests. Yet environmental governance is dominated by narrow management thinking that prioritises efficiency over diversity, failing to recognise diverse environmental knowledge, and leading to marginalisation of peoples and communities. This project investigates the extent to which diverse environmental knowledge, including ‘indigenous’ and other ‘local’ knowledge, is acknowledged and accommodated in water governance, and the methods used to elicit knowledge. The first stage of this project draws on field research in Tanzania, which is supported by an RGS-IBG Small Research Grant. The research contributes to current debates on the politics and practice of environmental knowledge production in the global south, and the production of knowledge about nature within academic discourse.
Valuing Water
This ongoing research develops ideas I explored in my PhD (Valuing Water: variability and the Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia), which I completed in 2006 at the Australian National University. This research is concerned with the discord between dominant approaches to valuing water and the values associated with particular water and water places. My PhD focused on water in the Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia; a region characterised by highly variable rainfall and river flow. The research takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human interactions with nature, and in my writing I draw on a number of analytical traditions including postcolonialism, social construction, materiality, and critiques of natural resource management and environmental valuation. This research contributes to recent nature–culture discourse within and beyond geography.
I am currently writing on these two themes, as well as a number of collaborative research projects. For a list of current publications, please visit my University of Wollongong webpage.
Current Projects
Environmental knowledge production and water governance in the global south
Contemporary environmental change presents a suite of new challenges for environmental governance (the set of principles and institutions that guide relationships between humans and nature). Water and water-based livelihoods are particularly vulnerable. Increasingly, water is managed across jurisdictions, bringing into play a range of potentially competing interests. Yet environmental governance is dominated by narrow management thinking that prioritises efficiency over diversity, failing to recognise diverse environmental knowledge, and leading to marginalisation of peoples and communities. This project investigates the extent to which diverse environmental knowledge, including ‘indigenous’ and other ‘local’ knowledge, is acknowledged and accommodated in water governance, and the methods used to elicit knowledge. The first stage of this project draws on field research in Tanzania, which is supported by an RGS-IBG Small Research Grant. The research contributes to current debates on the politics and practice of environmental knowledge production in the global south, and the production of knowledge about nature within academic discourse.
Valuing Water
This ongoing research develops ideas I explored in my PhD (Valuing Water: variability and the Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia), which I completed in 2006 at the Australian National University. This research is concerned with the discord between dominant approaches to valuing water and the values associated with particular water and water places. My PhD focused on water in the Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia; a region characterised by highly variable rainfall and river flow. The research takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human interactions with nature, and in my writing I draw on a number of analytical traditions including postcolonialism, social construction, materiality, and critiques of natural resource management and environmental valuation. This research contributes to recent nature–culture discourse within and beyond geography.
I am currently writing on these two themes, as well as a number of collaborative research projects. For a list of current publications, please visit my University of Wollongong webpage.
