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Joe Williams
I am a Human Geographer, based in the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University. My research aims to understand the changing relationships between environment and society using theoretical perspectives from political ecology, urban studies, development and political economy (particularly financialization).
My work focusses on the politics of water and energy infrastructure as a lens for critically understanding social and ecological challenges, such as climate change. My current work looks at how infrastructure corridors are changing the geographies of global development. I have a long-standing research interest in the proliferation of seawater desalination as a source of ‘new’ water in diverse contexts around the world, particularly in cities. Although not well understood, desalination now supplies water for about half a billion people globally and has quietly become one of the most important urban metabolic transformations in the 21st Century, offering important insights on how societies are responding to issues like water security.
I enjoy teaching both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, primarily on the themes of global development, environmental governance and sustainable development.
2013-2017: PhD Human Geography, University of Manchester.
2011-2012: MSc Environment and Development, University of Edinburgh.
2008-2011: BA (Hons) Geography, University of Manchester
My work focusses on the politics of water and energy infrastructure as a lens for critically understanding social and ecological challenges, such as climate change. My current work looks at how infrastructure corridors are changing the geographies of global development. I have a long-standing research interest in the proliferation of seawater desalination as a source of ‘new’ water in diverse contexts around the world, particularly in cities. Although not well understood, desalination now supplies water for about half a billion people globally and has quietly become one of the most important urban metabolic transformations in the 21st Century, offering important insights on how societies are responding to issues like water security.
I enjoy teaching both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, primarily on the themes of global development, environmental governance and sustainable development.
2013-2017: PhD Human Geography, University of Manchester.
2011-2012: MSc Environment and Development, University of Edinburgh.
2008-2011: BA (Hons) Geography, University of Manchester
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Mobilising an urban political ecology framework, and drawing on notions of emergence and distributed agency from assemblage thinking, this research examines the politics of the water-energy nexus through a critical analysis of the extraordinary emergence of seawater desalination as a significant new urban water supply for Southern California, USA, and Baja California, Mexico. Research was conducted in the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan region, where a large desalting facility has recently been completed to supply San Diego with purified ocean water, and a larger ‘binational’ facility is planned in Mexico to supply both sides of the border. The research makes three broad contributions. First, to understand desalination as emerging from the historical coproduction and urbanisation of water and energy in the American West. Second, to examine the transitioning environmental politics concomitant with calls for greater understanding of interrelationality. And third, to interrogate the efficacy of technology in reconfiguring the co-constitution of water, energy and society.
Mobilising an urban political ecology framework, and drawing on notions of emergence and distributed agency from assemblage thinking, this research examines the politics of the water-energy nexus through a critical analysis of the extraordinary emergence of seawater desalination as a significant new urban water supply for Southern California, USA, and Baja California, Mexico. Research was conducted in the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan region, where a large desalting facility has recently been completed to supply San Diego with purified ocean water, and a larger ‘binational’ facility is planned in Mexico to supply both sides of the border. The research makes three broad contributions. First, to understand desalination as emerging from the historical coproduction and urbanisation of water and energy in the American West. Second, to examine the transitioning environmental politics concomitant with calls for greater understanding of interrelationality. And third, to interrogate the efficacy of technology in reconfiguring the co-constitution of water, energy and society.