I thought it'd be good idea to feature my classmates who won awards for best dissertation (Environment and Development) 2010-2011 at King's College, London. Unlike other years, 3 people won the award this year. Their dissertations will soon be made available on the King's website. But I'd like to present the people behind that excellent work because I believe we can take a cue from their personal stories. Each of them have been so inspiring to me in their humility, sincerity and hard work that their stories just had to be shared. The first person to be featured here is Stavrianna Kaisari. She's from a place that could be termed as one of the cradles of civilization - Greece. Her award-winning dissertation was titled, 'The Learnean Hydra of Water Scarcity. A Case Study of Sifnos Island, Cyclades, Greece'.
According to the Greek legend, the Lernaen Hydra was one of the most hideous water creatures; a gigantic monster with nine heads, the centre one immortal. Each time a head was cut off, two grew in its place. The killing of Hyrda was one of the 12 Labours of Hercules. Stavrianna's dissertation suggests that the ways in which stakeholders frame water problems can determine the adoption of specific approaches to water management.
Meaning if that we frame the problem exclusively as an engineering problem to be fixed, then the solutions we're most likely to pick are obvious technological fixes instead of holistic approaches that allow for more learning along the way. One sees this simple fact being played out in many places across the world. However, it is critical to recognize that solving water problems is not as simple as adding up a few numbers, irrespective of how large those numbers may be. Now don't get me wrong. By no means am I saying that technological/engineering solutions are not useful. Far from it. They are in fact critical in many places. It is just important to recognize that they are by no means a stand-alone comprehensive solution and not always the only solution.
The strength of Stavrianna's dissertation is the clarity with which she writes and the coherence of her work. She uses the framework of 'wicked problems' to examine water scarcity. She draws evidence from the island of Sifnos and studies how the understanding of water problems and the approaches of water management have evolved from the 1950s.
Here are her answers to the questions I posed to her:
Could you tell us a bit more about your background before you started the Masters programme?
I hold a bachelor degree in Economics and I have a 5 years working experience in Advertising and Market and Social research. There is no doubt that during these years I built useful work experience. However, I also realized that I am deeply interested in the social perspective, which is in many cases ignored by Economists and Technocrats. This was the main reason why I decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Development Studies.
What made you pick this particular topic for your dissertation?
The Environment and Development programme at King’s college gave me a whole new perspective regarding development issues. When it came time to choose a dissertation topic, I had so many choices that I was totally lost!
I finally decided to choose something I would be personally engaged with. This is why I decided to focus on water scarcity problems. Growing on a Greek island, my childhood memories are filled with the element of water. I remember playing in the sea but I also remember my parents carrying jugs of potable water from springs and storing water for the summer days. Returning to a Greek island - with a fresh eye - in order to address water management issues, was a very engaging and interesting experience for me.
What were your challenges while working on it?
After my fieldwork, I thought the most difficult part of the dissertation was over. I was wrong! I soon realized how hard it is to sort through everything and organize the information in a way that makes sense and is interesting for the reader. I was very lucky to have a group of friends that really supported me, both practically and emotionally.
If you had to re-do the thesis, would you do it differently? if yes, how so?
I would start writing my thesis earlier. It took longer than I expected!
What do you hope to achieve through this dissertation?
My aim was to discuss in what ways water problems are framed and dealt with. Based on a rich literature, water problems are often conceptualised as engineering problems; stakeholders emphasise the physical aspect of water scarcity and prioritise technocratic, ‘big’ solutions (eg construction of large dams). However, my study - drawing evidence from the island of Sifnos in Greece - suggests that water problems have an economic, socio-political and environmental aspect and therefore call for an alternative framing, which recognizes the embedded complexity and draws together the ‘big picture’.
Stavrianna makes a very important point. It is becoming more and more important to re-evaluate the way we approach social and environmental problems across the world (particularly in fast developing regions such as Asia). In fact, in one of their latest working papers, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) seems also to have recognized four environmental problems - water management, air pollution, deforestation and land degradation, and climate change as 'Wicked Problems' that are 'dynamic, complex, encompass many issues and stakeholders, and evade straightforward, lasting solutions' Read more here. Coming back to Stavrianna's dissertation, I'd love to quote her concluding paragraph in full because I think it applies to more than just Greece.
'On an island where virtual water flows in food, desalinated water runs from taps and bottled water ends up in glasses, there is no room for simple answers (Handley 2001). In complex situations, choosing wisdom rather than objective truths may increase understanding towards the larger picture. The myth that describes the competition of gods for the city of Athens comes in mind; according to the story Poseidon (the god of waters) and Athena (the goddess of wisdom) competed for the city to be named after them. The Athenians chose wisdom over water, despite the fact that Poseidon condemned them to always suffer from water scarcity (Koutsogiannis 2007; Hydria project 2009). However, this did not stand as an obstacle for a great civilisation to emerge. Though the future is impossible to predict, it seems that with wisdom we can overrun physical challenges.'
In conclusion I'd like to thank Stavrianna for writing such an engaging thesis. Will post the link to the King's website as soon as it is made available. For now, let's just say that it is possible to defeat the hydra of water scarcity. But we'd have to learn along the way, just like Hercules did. In all probability, this story too may require more than one hero ...
 |
Linking framing of water problems to water management approaches. The inner circles represent the linear / conventional approaches. The outer circles represent the non-linear/alternative approaches. Source: Kaisari (2011) |
Could you tell us a bit more about your background before you started the Masters programme?
I hold a bachelor degree in Economics and I have a 5 years working experience in Advertising and Market and Social research. There is no doubt that during these years I built useful work experience. However, I also realized that I am deeply interested in the social perspective, which is in many cases ignored by Economists and Technocrats. This was the main reason why I decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Development Studies.
What made you pick this particular topic for your dissertation?
The Environment and Development programme at King’s college gave me a whole new perspective regarding development issues. When it came time to choose a dissertation topic, I had so many choices that I was totally lost!
I finally decided to choose something I would be personally engaged with. This is why I decided to focus on water scarcity problems. Growing on a Greek island, my childhood memories are filled with the element of water. I remember playing in the sea but I also remember my parents carrying jugs of potable water from springs and storing water for the summer days. Returning to a Greek island - with a fresh eye - in order to address water management issues, was a very engaging and interesting experience for me.
What were your challenges while working on it?
After my fieldwork, I thought the most difficult part of the dissertation was over. I was wrong! I soon realized how hard it is to sort through everything and organize the information in a way that makes sense and is interesting for the reader. I was very lucky to have a group of friends that really supported me, both practically and emotionally.
If you had to re-do the thesis, would you do it differently? if yes, how so?
I would start writing my thesis earlier. It took longer than I expected!
What do you hope to achieve through this dissertation?
My aim was to discuss in what ways water problems are framed and dealt with. Based on a rich literature, water problems are often conceptualised as engineering problems; stakeholders emphasise the physical aspect of water scarcity and prioritise technocratic, ‘big’ solutions (eg construction of large dams). However, my study - drawing evidence from the island of Sifnos in Greece - suggests that water problems have an economic, socio-political and environmental aspect and therefore call for an alternative framing, which recognizes the embedded complexity and draws together the ‘big picture’.
Stavrianna makes a very important point. It is becoming more and more important to re-evaluate the way we approach social and environmental problems across the world (particularly in fast developing regions such as Asia). In fact, in one of their latest working papers, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) seems also to have recognized four environmental problems - water management, air pollution, deforestation and land degradation, and climate change as 'Wicked Problems' that are 'dynamic, complex, encompass many issues and stakeholders, and evade straightforward, lasting solutions' Read more here. Coming back to Stavrianna's dissertation, I'd love to quote her concluding paragraph in full because I think it applies to more than just Greece.
'On an island where virtual water flows in food, desalinated water runs from taps and bottled water ends up in glasses, there is no room for simple answers (Handley 2001). In complex situations, choosing wisdom rather than objective truths may increase understanding towards the larger picture. The myth that describes the competition of gods for the city of Athens comes in mind; according to the story Poseidon (the god of waters) and Athena (the goddess of wisdom) competed for the city to be named after them. The Athenians chose wisdom over water, despite the fact that Poseidon condemned them to always suffer from water scarcity (Koutsogiannis 2007; Hydria project 2009). However, this did not stand as an obstacle for a great civilisation to emerge. Though the future is impossible to predict, it seems that with wisdom we can overrun physical challenges.'
In conclusion I'd like to thank Stavrianna for writing such an engaging thesis. Will post the link to the King's website as soon as it is made available. For now, let's just say that it is possible to defeat the hydra of water scarcity. But we'd have to learn along the way, just like Hercules did. In all probability, this story too may require more than one hero ...
No comments:
Post a Comment