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STATE-SOCIETY RELATIONS IN THE CREATION OF MULTIPLE HYDRO-SOCIAL TERRITORIES: THE CASE OF CLIMATE PROOFED WATER IN KHULNA, BANGLADESH

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2025-01-18
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Abstract

This dissertation spans the areas of water, climate change, and state-society relationships. Drawing on theoretical insights from political ecology, the politics of scale, and Gramsci's theory of the integral state, I develop a conceptual framework to understand the production and implementation of a climate-proofed water supply project in the small city of Khulna, Bangladesh. The project is emblematic of contemporary development where the utility is funded by the Asian Development Bank and JICA, and built by Chinese contractors. I use ethnographic methods, administrative data, and GIS analysis to generate information on the project and its context, and to study the different agents that enable or disenable a just transition for climate change at three different sites and scales. At the local level, I study the mobilization of community-based organizations to provide shared water supply in three informal settlements within Khulna city. At the city level, I focus on private contractors and utility staff as they connect middle-class neighborhoods to the piped water supply network across Khulna city. At the regional scale, I investigate water extraction processes that bring water to the utility from a rural area of Khulna district. The dissertation thus considers the hydrosocial cycle from extraction, delivery and consumption across three scales. The findings highlight the impacts of water supply infrastructure provision in three ways: first, it shapes urbanization processes and creates new territories within Khulna city. Second, it demonstrates the ways in which state-society relations can simultaneously use consensual and coercive mechanisms to tackle inequities during implementation. In revealing how consent and coercion work and which actors are involved, the dissertation urges utilities and planners to replace older technocratic planning processes with newer processes that engage communities at the local scale. Finally, the dissertation highlights that sustainable water planning should view “the urban hydrosocial cycle as a single integrated planning system” to reduce the harmful environmental and social impact in Khulna city and the broader region.

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187 pages

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2022-12

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Climate Change; Gramsci; Politics of Scale; State-Society Relationships; Urbanization; Water

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Kudva, Neema

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Zinda, John
Forester, John

Degree Discipline

City and Regional Planning

Degree Name

Ph. D., City and Regional Planning

Degree Level

Doctor of Philosophy

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Government Document

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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dissertation or thesis

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