Dr. Rutgerd Anne Boelens

Irrigation and Water Engineering Group

Department Environmental Sciences

Wageningen University - The Netherlands

§     Associate Professor / Senior Researcher Irrigation and Water Management

§     Consortium Director CONCERTACIÓN / Interdisciplinary Research and Capacity-building Program on IWRM in Andean Countries

§     General Coordinator WALIR / Water Law and Indigenous Rights Program

§     Coordinator NUFFIC Program on Water Policies and IWRM (Andean Region)

§     Research Coordinator NWO-WOTRO Integrated Program “Struggling for Water Security”

§     Coordinator International Research Program Justicia Hídrica

Tel: +31 (0) 317 483916 / 484190;  Fax: +31 (0) 317 484759,

e-mail: Rutgerd.Boelens@wur.nl

-1985   BSc Land Use Systems, Wageningen University, Netherlands           (Cum Laude)

-1990   M.Sc. Tropical Land and Water Use, Wageningen University              (Cum Laude)

M.Sc.-theses (6) with the Departments:

· Dept. Rural Sociology (water development in Cusco, Peru);

· Dept. Irrigation & Water Engineering (Andean irrigation, desk);

· Dept. Irrigation & Water Engineering (land and water use, Zimbabwe);

· Dept. Rural Engineering (degeneration land use systems, Cataluña, Spain);

· Dept. Social Philosophy (social construction of water scarcity, desk);

· Dept. Communication Sciences (water devt. & popular education, desk).

-2008   Ph.D. Social Sciences  - Wageningen University                                 (Cum Laude)                                       

Title: “The Rules of the Game and the Game of the Rules. Normalization and Resistance in Andean Water Control” (Water Management Studies, Rural Sociology, Gender Studies, Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology, Legal Anthropology, History, Political Sciences. Promoters: Prof. Jan Douwe vd Ploeg & Prof. Hans Achterhuis).

§         Policies and politics of water reforms, rights and legislation, and development intervention;

§         Legal pluralism, sociolegal frameworks and property rights in irrigation and watershed management;

§         Politics of scale and up-scaling strategies in natural resource governance

§         Water cultures, equity, gender, identity, and empowerment in local, peasant and indigenous water control;

§         Action research, interactive design and interdisciplinary strategies in natural resource development;

§         Social mobilization, mediation and the struggles over water and natural resources, rights, authority, and policy discourses. 

Primary Research Locations: Spain, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile / Andean Region / South America

Rutgerd Boelens was trained as a scholar in Irrigation & Rural Development at Wageningen University, combining social sciences with irrigation and rural engineering (MSc and PhD research in Peru, Ecuador, Spain, Zimbabwe). First he worked in Europe in North-South solidarity networks, then he lived for many years in the Andean Region working as an advisor and action-researcher on interactive irrigation development; user-oriented water legislation; multiple stakeholder platforms for watershed management; empowerment and institution-strengthening; gender equity; and customary rights.

Since 1998, he works with Wageningen University. As senior researcher, associate professor, and scientific programs coordinator he works on water rights, water policies, institutional development and the cultural politics of water control, and has organized a number of international congresses, research programs, educational and training programs, and action-research networks on water rights, identity, politics, and legal complexity.

He was academic coordinator of the Bolivian Centro AGUA program (Andean Centre of Excellence on Water Management and Use); general coordinator of the program Water Law and Indigenous Rights (WALIR) on contradictions between official and local water rights frameworks in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico (comparative case: U.S.A.); and coordinator of the documentary film program ‘Tail-enders’ on water rights in times of neo-liberalism (Ecuador, Spain, India). For the interAndean program Concertación (water policy research and training in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador) he is the Consortium Director. He also coordinates the NWO-WOTRO Integrated PhD Program “Struggling for Water Security in the Andean countries”; the inter-Andean ‘Course on Water, Law, Agronomy and Anthropology’; the international NUFFIC water policy training programs in the Andes, and the recently set-up inter-continental research program Justicia Hidrica.

He has published a number of books on the links among water rights, water cultures, water politics and power. His articles also deal with the issues of water law and property relations, water reforms and interventions, and their relationship with social mobilization, mediation processes and struggles over water resources, rights and authority.

§         Academic Coordinator Centre of Excellence “Centro AGUA” / Andean Centre for Water Management and Use, Univ. Mayor San Simón, Cochabamba, Bolivia. (1998 – 2004).

§         Coordinator research projects “Searching for Equity and Justice in Water Management” (1997 -1998) and “Water Rights and Empowerment” (2000-2002).

§         Coordinator documentary project  “Tailenders. The Struggle for Water in Times of Neoliberalism” (Spain, Ecuador, India). (2000-2002).

§         Co-organizer Working Group on “Water and Cultural Diversity / Indigenous Water Rights” World Water Forum III (UNESCO-WALIR-CRLE) (2001-2003).

§         Director  “Water Law and Indigenous Rights Program” (WALIR). (Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, USA). (2000-2007).[click here]
§         Course Director of the inter-Andean Course on “Water, Law, Agronomy and Anthropology”. (2004-2006 and 2009-2010).

§         Consortium Director of the Research and Training Program on IWRM NUFFIC-CAMAREN (Ecuador) (2005-2007).

§         Consortium Director of the Research and Training Program on IWRM NUFFIC-Centro Bartolomé de las Casas / Universidad Pedro Ruiz Gallo (Peru) (2006-2009)

§         Consortium Director of the Program “Concertación” on Research and Training for Integrated Water Management Policies. (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador). (2006-2011) www.concertacion.info

§         Coordinator NWO-WOTRO Integrated Program “Struggling for Water Security. Social Mobilization for the Defence of Water Rights in Ecuador and Peru”. (2008- 2011).

§         Coordinator of the Research and Training Program on “Water Access and Conflicts” NUFFIC-CAMAREN (Ecuador) (2008-2009).

§         Coordinator of the academic and action-research program Justicia Hídrica (Spain, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, USA, Colombia, Mozambique, Nepal) ( (2009-2013, under construction).

§         Editorial Board Member of the international journal Water Alternatives

§         Member Legal Expert Group of the United Nations World Water Development Report Program (WWDR-WWAP).

§         Visiting scholar (University of Colorado, USA), and invited speaker at universities and research centers in Europe, Latin America and USA.

§         Senior Member CERES (Research School for Resource Studies for Development)

[incl. formulation, acquisition and academic supervision of the above first 12 research & educational programs]

§         Main Editor of the WALIR Research Volumes / Wageningen University – UN/CEPAL (2002-2008) [click here]

§         Main Editor of the book series Water & Society (Agua y Sociedad / section Water Law and Indigenous Rights), of IEP Publishing House, Lima (since 2005). [click here]