ASET Colloquium
De-naturalising scarcity: the case of water, science, technology and politics
by Dr. Lyla Mehta (Institute of Development Studies, UK)
Friday, February 7, 2014
from
to
(Asia/Kolkata)
at Colaba Campus ( AG-66 )
at Colaba Campus ( AG-66 )
Description |
Scarcity is considered an ubiquitous feature of the human condition. The scarcity postulate that human wants are unlimited and the means to achieve them, scarce and limited underpins much modern economics. Scarcity is widely used as an explanation for social organisation, social conflict and the resource crunch confronting humanity's survival on the planet. Scarcity is made out to be an all-pervasive fact of our lives be it of housing, food, water and oil or in the drive for nuclear power. This talk examines how scarcity has emerged as an all pervasive discourse in scientific and policy circles. It shows how the 'scare' of scarcity has led to scarcity emerging as a political strategy for powerful groups. Aggregate numbers and physical quantities are trusted, while local knowledges and experiences of scarcity that identify problems more accurately and specifically are ignored. Science and technology are expected to provide 'solutions', but such expectations embody a multitude of unexamined assumptions about the nature of the 'problem', about the technologies and about the institutional arrangements put forward as a 'fix.' By examining the case of water, the talk demonstrates that scarcity is not a natural condition: the problem lies in how we see scarcity and the ways in which it is socially generated. About Dr. Lyla Mehta: Lyla Mehta is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and Visiting Professor, Norwegian University of Sciences. |
Organised by | Dr. Satyanarayana Bheesette |