Assistant Professor Meera Karunananthan

Biography

Conflicts over the control of freshwater supplies have become a defining feature of capitalism in the 21^st century. As an engaged researcher, I am committed to theorizing these “hydro-social” conflicts by bringing critical geography and feminist theory into conversation with knowledge produced by grassroots movements at the frontlines.

My academic work is shaped by many years of experience in environmental and social justice organizing. Building on relationships with feminist, indigenous and environmental justice movements, my current research investigates the processes that produce uneven distribution of water in cities of the global South. As a feminist political ecologist, I am concerned with the ways in which market-based solutions to climate change and drought reproduce power asymmetries and legitimize the ongoing dispossession of historically marginalized groups. Specifically, I examine the  racialized, class-based and gendered impacts of privatization, and financialization of urban water systems.

Before joining Carleton, I was the director of the Blue Planet Project, a global water justice organization founded by the Canadian NGO, the Council of Canadians. In this role, I supported global trans-local organizing aimed at building connections between local water justice struggles through research and popular education strategies.

My methods of research and analysis are influenced by the work of BIPOC feminists whose study of racial capitalism is foregrounded by the experiences of women living at the intersections of race, gender, colonial and class-based oppression.

2024-2025 courses

• FYSM 1107 Fall/Winter – Social Justice and the City
• ENST 2001 Fall – Sustainable Futures: Environmental Challenges and Solutions
• ENST 3500 Winter – Climate Action

Selected publications

• Karunananthan, M. (2019). Can the human right to water disrupt neoliberal water policy in the era of corporate policy-making. Volume 98, January 2019, Pages 244-253.
• Karunananthan, M. (2021). From kampung to courtroom: Feminist praxis and rights campaigns in poor urban women’s struggles for water justice in Jakarta. In Peake, L et al (Eds) A Feminist Urban Theory For Our Time. Antipode Book series, Wiley Blackwell.

Selected non-refereed publications

• Karunananthan, M. (1 May, 2020). People in the Global South Don’t Need Debt Relief, They Need a New System. Open Democracy.
• Karunananthan, M. (12 June 2017). A group of Canadian teachers could decide the future of Chile’s water. The Guardian, Global Development Section.
• Barlow, M & Karunananthan, M. (August 10, 2016). Foreign aid must promote, not threaten human right to water. The Hill Times.
• Karunananthan, M. (October 29, 2015). The Most Basic of Rights. The Jacobin
• Dearn, M & Karunananthan, M. (21 May 2015). Privatising public services is no way to fund sustainable development. The Guardian, Global Development Section.
• Karunananthan, M. (March 25, 2015). The human right to water: Salvadoran NGOs and a global campaign. The Guardian, Global Development Section.
• Karunananthan, M. (June 19, 2014). Is the UN turning its back on the human right to water?” The Guardian, Poverty Matters Section.

Published reports

• Karunananthan, M. (2018). Privatization is not a Means of Implementation for SDG 6. Public Services International.
• Karunananthan, M. and Spronk, S. (2017) Ensuring Just and Sustainable Water Infrastructure. In Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017. Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable. Pages: 69-76
• Karunananthan, M & Tellatin, D (2016). Whose rights will the 2030 Agenda promote? In Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2016. Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• Karunananthan, M. & Spronk, S. (2015). Water at the Heart of El Salvador’s Struggle Against Neoliberalism. Blue Planet Project and The Municipal Services Project.

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