Bio

Returning to UBC where I received a bachelor’s degree in economics, I find the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (IRES) to be an intellectual home for problem-based, interdisciplinary researchers with deep social and ecological concerns. I started my PhD journey in the fall of 2019, working under the supervision of Dr. Terre Satterfield. My current project draws on political ontology, decolonial studies, Indigenous studies, and ethnographic methods to study river relations, lived realities of river dwellers, and knowledge politics in Mekong River science-policy-management interfaces. I’m interested in understanding the conditions for which the Mekong River is recognized as a living being, and how locally representative ways of knowing and living with the river can inform our terms of engagement beyond modern freshwater and biodiversity governance. To this end, I have been working with riparian community members on a Mekong River and Fish Monitoring Project.

Prior to my journey back to academia, I was a researcher and water policy analyst at the Pacific Institute in California. I have worked on topics including water rights and access, cost evaluations of water supply and demand management options, drought impacts on agriculture and salmon fisheries, and water infrastructures and public health. I hold a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a specialized master’s degree in human geography from the University of Zurich, where I studied the use of local ecological knowledge (LEK) and downstream communities’ response to impacts from large-scale Mekong River development.

Outside of work, you can find me hiking, rock climbing, sketching/painting, and trying out new vegan recipes.

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rapichan-Phurisamban