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Worlds at Waste: The Crisis of Water in the Subcontinent

Buell Hall, Columbia University

Event Description

The focus of this day-long workshop, "Worlds at Waste: Water," is to reflect on recent climate events that have caused massive displacement in southern Pakistan, southwest India, and Bangladesh. It aims to bring together scientists and social scientists to help look through the lens of historical pasts, politics, and embedded presents. Devastation and displacement from water caused by the climate crisis are and will remain a recurring, returning, and pervasive phenomenon in the global south. This approach intends to shift away from the focus on modeling catastrophic futures, the periodization of eras, and mapping the implications of climate change that prevail in current dialogues on climate change. Rather, the workshop guides towards a conversation that foregrounds human and environmental vulnerability in non-Western, transnational spaces with Indigenous and historical means of resilience. The intention is to continue this series with a focus on Air and Land in the following academic year.

Event Speakers

  • Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University

  • Amita Baviskar, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University

  • Karine Gagné, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph

  • Maira Hayat, Assistant Professor of Environment and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame

  • Marvi Mazhar, architect and researcher

  • Hung T. T. Nguyen, Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University

  • Andrew Rumbach, Senior Fellow in Climate and Communities at the Urban Institute

  • Adam H. Sobel, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics and of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University

Event Information

Free and open to the public. Registration is required via Eventbrite. All in-person attendees must follow Columbia's COVID-19 policies. Visitors will be asked to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. 

This event is supported by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy and co-sponsored by multiple partners at Columbia University, including the Center for Science and Society, the Department of History, and the Center for the Study of Muslim Societies.

The Center for Science and Society makes every reasonable effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend a Center for Science and Society event, please contact us at scienceandsociety@columbia.edu or (212) 854-0666 at least 10 days in advance of the event. For more information, please visit the campus accessibility webpage. Sponsored by: Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Center for Science and Society, Department of History, and Center for the Study of Muslim Societies

Artwork by Laiba Raja