Disciplining Water - Risk, Environmental Politics, and the Return of Desalination

Project Description

Using water as material conduit towards tracing political and economic capital flows, my dissertation uncovers the (re)-emergence of the industrial phenomenon of desalination (making the ocean potable), and its consequences. My ethnographic research shows that while industry experts assert desalination as a value-neutral technological fix for arid coastal cities concerned about climate change, it remains far from foregone. Questions central to environmental justice remain at stake, such as affordability, representation, industrial footprint, and ecological sustainability. Bridging the gap between environmental sociology and political economy, I argue these debates are significantly underpinned by financial structures, (e.g., fiscal models, contract negotiations, and profit rates) that facilitate the cleavage of local communities in favor of a class bias for a luxury commodity – purified ocean water. As marginalized community voices are stifled, progressive social and environmental change remains hindered.

This research provides fresh perspectives on classical sociological concerns of social inequality and structure, making important links between empirically driven, community focused environmental justice literature and the often-abstract financialization literature. By contrast, I demonstrate how the apparently abstract expansion of financial logics creates discernible and durable consequences in everyday life.

Several peer-reviewed articles are forthcoming on these topics. This research has been funded through competitive juried grants and fellowships by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate College and the Department of Sociology.

Project Outcomes

2023 O’Neill, Brian F. and Joe Williams. “Developments in desalination need a social sciences perspective.” Nature Water. Volume 1: 994-995 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00161-x

2023   O’Neill, Brian F. “Water for whom? Desalination and the cooptation of the environmental justice frame in Southern California.” Online first at Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. DOI 10.1177/25148486221102377

2023 O’Neill, Brian F. “Desalination as a New Frontier of Environmental Justice Struggle” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

2022 O’Neill, Brian F. “Desalination and the Political (Blue) Economy of Climate Adaptation.” EnviroSociety, March 7, 2022. https://www.envirosociety.org/2022/03/desalination-and-the-political-blue-economy-of-climate-adaptation/

2022   O’Neill, Brian F. “Comprendre la Politique du Dessalement: Une Approche de Terrain.” In Rés-EAUx: Réseau d’Études et d’Échanges en Sciences Sociales sur l’Eau. April 29, 2022.

2020   O’Neill, Brian F. “The World-Ecology of Desalination: From Cold-War Positioning to Financialization in the Capitalocene.” Journal of World-Systems Research. Vol. 26, No. 2: 318-349. DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2020.987

• Winner – 2021 Florian Znaniecki Award for outstanding published graduate student paper in the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Special issue: “World-System and the Anthropocene” – editors Michael Murphy and Leslie Sklair.