GECHS

Lyla Mehta is a sociologist and has worked as Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex since 1998. Her past research has been on the dynamics of water scarcity, forced displacement and resistance to large infrastructure projects and the public and private nature of water. She has extensive field experience in India and more recently has begun research in South Africa. She uses the case of water to explore questions around knowledge/ power linkages, social differentiation in natural resource management, rights to resources and how competing forms of governance shape people’s rights and access to resources. She is author of “The politics and poetics of water: Naturalising scarcity in western India” (2005, Longman Press).

Recent Publications

Movik, S., L. Mehta, et al. (2005). “A “blue revolution” for African agriculture?” IDS Bulletin-Institute of Development Studies 36(2): 41-+.

Mehta, L. and B. L. Madsen (2005). “Is the WTO after your water? The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and poor people’s right to water.” Natural Resources Forum 29(2): 154-164.