Prof. Margreet Zwarteveen PhD, MSc

Biography

Margreet Zwarteveen is an irrigation engineer and social scientist, who has been working since 1998 at the Centre for Water and Climate at Wageningen University. From 2012 onwards she was an Associate Professor, and also assumed responsibilities for coordinating gender studies education at the university.

Zwarteveen studies water allocation policies and practices, focusing on questions of equity and justice. Her research includes the study of different modalities of regulating water flows (technologies, institutions) and of ways to understand (knowledges) or legitimize these. Zwarteveen uses an interdisciplinary approach, seeing water allocation as the outcome of interactions between nature, technologies and society.

The relation between power and water is central in the work of Zwarteveen, with explicit attention to gender. Her current research looks at re-allocations of water from agriculture and rural areas to cities and industries: how do these re-allocations happen, with what effects, and how are they legitimized in policies and knowledge? She for instance studies how the introduction of supposedly water efficient technologies (drip irrigation) goes accompanied with, and causes, changes in water tenure relations that favour some people more than others. Zwarteveen is also interested in questions emerging at the interface between science and policy when governing water, especially in relation to the challenges of dealing with complexities and uncertainties.

Zwarteveen is involved in several research projects funded by NWO-WOTRO, such as The Globalisation of Water Struggles and Hydropower development in the context of climate change: Exploring conflicts and fostering cooperation across scales and boundaries in the Eastern Himalayas. She also coordinates the NWO program Drip Irrigation Realities in Perspective.

Publications

Articles

Joy, J.K., S. Kulkarni, D. Roth and M. Zwarteveen. 2014. Repoliticizing water governance. Exploring water re-allocations in terms of justice. Local Environment 2014, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2013.870542

Kooij, S. van der; M.Z. Zwarteveen, M. Kuper and H. Boesveld. 2013. The efficiency of drip irrigation unpacked. Agricultural Water Management 123:103-110, DOI 10.1016/j.agwat.2013.03.014

Rap, E., A. Prakash and M. Zwarteveen. 2013. Organising Water Education Regionally: the Innovations, Experiences and Challenges of three Southern Networks. SAWAS journal 3 (3). (http://sawasjournal.org/v3i3/full-papers.pdf#page=19)

Liebrand, J. , M. Z. Zwarteveen, P. Wester and B. van Koppen. 2012. The Deep Waters of Land Reform. Understanding land-and water re-distribution in Limpopo Province, Olifant’s Basin, South Africa. Water International 37 (7): 773-787. DOI: 10.1080/02508060.2012.740613

Sosa, M. and Zwarteveen, M. 2012. Exploring the Politics of Water Grabbing. The Case of Large Mining Operations in the Peruvian Andes. Water Alternatives 5 (2):360-375

Books

M. Zwarteveen; S. Ahmed and S. Gautam (eds.). 2012. Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia. New Delhi: Zubaan Publishers.

Chapters in books

Boelens, R.A. ; Hoogesteger van Dijk, J.D. ; Sosa Landeo, M. ; Zwarteveen, M.Z. 2013. El reclamo por la seguridad en los derechos de agua y la transparencia en la gobernanza del agua por medio de la movilizacion multiescala en los Andes. In P. Garcia and M. del Bogota (eds.),  Gestion Integrada de Recursos Hidricos. Transparencia e integridad, Bogota: Universidad EXTERNADO de Colombia, - p. 237 - 268.

Zwarteveen, M. 2013. El cambio climatico desde la perspectiva de la justicia social. In: J. Hoogesteger and P. Urteaga (eds.), Agua e inequidad. Discursos, politica y medios de vida en la region andina. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, pp. 45-52

Vera Delgado, Juana and M. Zwarteveen. 2013. Modernidad, exclusion y resistencia: el agua y las luchas indigenas. In: In: J. Hoogesteger and P. Urteaga (eds.), Agua e inequidad. Discursos, politica y medios de vida en la region andina. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, pp. 165-180

Zwarteveen, M. 2012. Seeing women and questioning gender in water management. In: A. Prakash, S. Singh, C. Gurung Goodrich and S. Janakarajan (eds.), Water Resources Policies in South Asia: Analyzing Regional and Country Experiences. New Delhi: Routledge, pp. 38-65

H. Achterhuis, R. Boelens and M. Zwarteveen. 2012. Water Property Relations and Modern Policy Regimes: Neoliberal Utopia and the Disempowerment of Collective Action. In: R. Boelens, D. Getches and A. Guevara (eds.), Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity. London: Earthscan, pp. 27-56

Zwarteveen, M. 2012. A Masculine Water World. The Politics of Gender and Identity in Irrigation Expert Thinking. In: R. Boelens, D. Getches and A. Guevara (eds.), Out of the Mainstream: Water Rights, Politics and Identity. London: Earthscan, pp. 75-98.