Research for the greater good
Adele Perry leads interdisciplinary water justice research across campus
In a collaborative effort to raise awareness about water justice and injustices, Senior Fellow and Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Arts Dr. Adele Perry spearheads an interdisciplinary research project titled “Just Waters: Thinking with Hydro-Social Relations for a More Just and Sustainable World.”
This project, funded by the University of Manitoba’s Ignite Program at the Centre for Human Rights Research, brings together researchers from seven faculties and ten departments, including social sciences, natural sciences, education, engineering, the humanities, and social work. The project is housed at the Centre for Human Rights Research (CHRR), where Adele is Director. The CHRR has a longstanding interest in issues of water rights and justice.
In speaking with Adele Perry, she emphasizes the importance of continuously growing knowledge through collaboration.
“Working in this kind of interdisciplinary way requires us to not just learn new material or information but to relearn how and why we do the kind of learning we do. The Just Waters project is about creating new knowledge and teaching ourselves and each other.”
Similarly, Kiersten Sanderson, the project’s first research assistant and a participant in the Indigenous Summer Student Internship Program, has also seen positive impacts from this campus-wide collaboration.
“I’ve learned over the past few months that water justice requires us to remember that all living beings are affected by ongoing water crises in various forms. That’s why the diversity of faculties and departments is important.”
As Adele Perry and her team focus on this water justice, it’s hard to miss the connections between human life and water in a place like Winnipeg. In bridging this connection, the project will look at the juncture between society in three ways: climate justice and water, Indigenous people, water, justice and injustice, and the pasts and futures of water.
With the project underway, the impact Adele hopes to see in this project is a shift in how research around water and what people, including the general public, know about water research.