A university study highlights the need to initiate a more democratic and participatory management system, starting by restoring the public nature of water.
Carlos Shanka’s master’s thesis explores “the critical paradox between water abundance and scarcity in Lanzarote, a dry island whose dependence on desalination has transformed its development.” But it goes beyond that. His research critically addresses the local challenges within this political ecology of water scarcity and abundance. Lanzarote serves, in this case, as a prime case study for analyzing the political ecology of water. The example demonstrates how abundance can be scarce, and scarcity, abundant.
Shanka studied Biology and later earned a Master’s degree from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex (UK). He received the UNESCO Young Scientist Award, along with fourteen other students from around the world, to conduct research. He chose the case of water in Lanzarote, not to discuss “liters or kilowatt-hours, but rather justice and power dynamics.” His thesis deals with water, but the main issue he attempts to address through water “not only as a natural resource, but also as a conceptual or intellectual one, is abundance,” he explains.
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