Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Mutual Impacts of Cross-Cultural Contacts

研究生安德里亚·巴列斯特罗，由乔治·E博士指导。马库斯将研究拉丁美洲如何将水视为商品并进行管理。水作为一项基本权利和水作为一种商品之间的区别象征着公共领域和私人领域的分离和政治结构，以及对自然和权利的不同道德投资。在拉丁美洲的水政治中，由于专家知识的标准化，这种区别正在变得模糊。巴列斯特罗将调查拉丁美洲水资源管理方面不断变化的最佳实践和专家知识概念，在经济改革浪潮中，地方政府越来越多地减少了公共供水设施的规模，并采用了科学的水资源规划工具。研究将在巴西的塞阿拉和哥斯达黎加的圣何塞进行，研究者将采用一系列民族志数据收集策略，包括参与者观察、深入访谈、档案研究和调查。她的重点将是比较水专家如何产生一套单一的技术法律政策指导方针，同时利用当地和国际参考框架的相互冲突的信息。本项目的主要目标是调查a）水专家如何产生、动员和谈判水政策专门知识，B）这些谈判是否改变了人们对水权的理解，以及c）当地具体的稀缺和质量环境条件如何影响专家政策工具的选择。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于社会科学理论的国际科学和地方环境管理之间的关系，使社会科学承担当代重要问题。这项研究也将大大有助于社会科学家的教育。

Graduate student Andrea Ballestero, supervised by Dr. George E. Marcus, will undertake research on change in how water is perceived and managed as a commodity in Latin America. The distinction between water as a basic right and water as a commodity has been symbolic of the separation and political configuration of the public domain and the private domain, and of different ethical investments in nature and rights. This distinction is being blurred in Latin American water politics through the standardization of expert knowledge. Ballestero will investigate changing notions of best practices and expert knowledge in the management of water in Latin America where, in waves of economic reform, local governments have increasingly reduced the size of public water utilities and adopted scientific tools for water planning. The research is to be conducted in Ceará, Brazil, and San Jose, Costa Rica.The researcher will employ a range of ethnographic data collection strategies including participant observation, in-depth interviewing, archival research, and surveys. Her focus will be on comparing how water experts produce a single set of techno-legal policy guidelines while making use of conflicting information from local and international frames of reference. The main objectives of this project are to investigate a) how water experts produce, mobilize, and negotiate water policy expertise, b) whether or not these negotiations change how water rights are understood, and c) how specific local environmental conditions of scarcity and quality influence expert policy tool choices. The research is important because it will contribute to social science theory about the relationships between international science and local environmental management, bringing social science to bear on issues of great contemporary importance. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.