Conference on Social Water Studies in the MENA Region: State of the Art and Perspectives

Call for Presentations & Papers:
Conference on Social Water Studies in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa)
Region: State of the Art and Perspectives
28. – 29. September 20141
in Madaba-Amman, Jordan
on the Campus of German Jordanian University (GJU)
Co- convenors:
Majed Abu Zreig, Manar Fayyad, Loay Salhieh, Serena Sandri, Kiwan Suhil
German Jordanian University
Susanne Hofmann-Souki, Andreas Thiel, Matthias Weiter, Dimitrios Zikos
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences
Abbas Al Omari, Sayed Khattari
Jordan University, Water Energy and Environment Center (WEEC)
Background
Social studies dealing with environmental issues aspire to integrate the perspective of different
disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science,
psychology, religion, and sociology, and to combine it with appropriate content from the natural and
technical sciences. The aim of such an interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues is to gain a
deeper understanding of human behaviour and organisation, not abstracting it from its underlying
social, political and economic structures and cultural aspects.
Recently, convenors of this conference initiated a dialogue and reviewed social scientific work on
water in the MENA region. This process revealed that technical knowledge and discourse about
water management in the region has been vast, while the social scientific aspects of social water
studies have been receiving much less attention. At the same time, water use and management
problems in the region are rarely addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective. Nevertheless, as
the last 30-40 years of social science and interdisciplinary international scholarly work on water
management and use have shown, adopting an interdisciplinary perspective can help answering key
questions concerning the way individuals and societies address water, what the underlying reasons
are and, last but not least, what contributes to and what counteracts sustainable water
management.
Against this background this conference aims to initiate a stock-taking of social science research on
water issues in the MENA region and to illustrate how a social science perspective could be further
developed. Relevant work on water can address such diverse issues as: water use and management
in agriculture, water supply and sanitation, coordinating among different water uses and water
planning, water infrastructure development, ground and surface water use, water re-use, water
1
Start 9:00 am on 28 September, end of presentations 6 p.m. 29 September.

harvesting and recycling, water pollution control, (Strategic) Environmental Impact Assessment,
trans-boundary water management, hydro-politics and the political ecology of water, water
governance, collective action in water management, the water-agriculture-food-energy nexus, water
and tourism development, fisheries, climate change induced changes in water use and its social
implications, etc.
The workshop pursues the following three objectives:
I. Taking stock of social science and interdisciplinary research on water in the region.
II. Exchanging among internationally renowned scientists on water research elsewhere and
discussing the way social sciences, its most innovative methodologies and interdisciplinary
work can contribute to our understanding of water issues.
III. Exploring if and how underlying aspects related to education and research in the MENA
region influence the role of social science approaches and interdisciplinarity in water
research and further examining societal preparedness to address these issues from a social
science perspective.
In order to achieve these objectives the workshop invites contributions that address one or several
of the following questions and related aspects:
1. What is the behavioral dimension of water use and management in MENA countries?
2. How is water use coordinated in different domains/sectors, and how are conflicts addressed?
3. What is the role of land tenure in relation agricultural water use?
4. What is the role of the state in water use, management and infrastructure development?
5. What is the role of international organizations in water use and development?
6. How is water management organized in different contexts , how can we evaluate this?
7. How do traditions, religion(s) and social structures influence water use in region?
8. What is the role of participatory and cooperative approaches in water management?
9. What is the role of recent economic, social and political changes for transformation of water
management?
10. What is the role of paradigms and paradigm shifts in water management?
11. What are methodologies applied to the social study of water management in the region?
12. How are education and training in general and with regards to water management in
particular structured and what role do social studies approaches play in that regard?
13. Case studies and previous projects addressing water management success and/or failure in
relation to community behavior.
Proposals for papers and presentations in regard to these questions as well as in relation
to interrelated aspects are invited. Please, send abstract (350 words abstract) and a short
biography (200 words) to watermena@outlook.de by 30 May 2014.
Participants will be selected for either oral or poster presentation and informed by 16 of
June 2014. All selected participants are held to submit a full paper by 15 September 2014.
Travel, conference participation, and accommodation will be reimbursed to the
participants.

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