WaterTalk: What’s public about public water?
As part of the Water Institute's WaterTalks lecture series, Dr. David McDonald, Professor, Department of Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, will present: What’s public about public water?
This event is in person in DC 1302 with a lunch reception to follow in DC 1301 (The Fishbowl).
Debates about water privatization have tended to construct a simplistic binary of public versus private. In reality, ‘public’ water is varied and complex in its institutional and ideological make-up, illustrated in part by the rise of very different types of ‘remunicipalized’ water services over the past ten years as well as the growth of ‘corporatized’ public utilities. Drawing on two decades of empirical and theoretical work on this topic, Dr McDonald will highlight key tensions and synergies in the emerging debates about the nature of public water services.
David McDonald is Professor of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University and Director of the Municipal Services Project. He has conducted research on public services in more than 50 countries and has written extensively in academic and popular formats. His most recent book is “Meanings of Public and the Future of Public Services”
