Department of Sociology

Year of Entry: 2020

I am an historical sociologist of colonialism, environment and development. My dissertation examines the power arrangements in the colonial state that led to the 
surprising case of public water infrastructure development in early 20 th century Curaçao. Curaçao was an island colony in the Dutch Caribbean at the time, and was experiencing chronic water shortages. Providing inhabitants with clean drinking water was therefore essential, and was enacted under a colonial regime. How did this
anomalous instance come to be, where colonialism – generally a violent and oppressive regime - generated a positive outcome for colonized subjects? Pushing back against arguments that colonialism is monolithic, I argue that power under late colonialism was unevenly exercised andcontingent. I show how it shapes state-society relations within the colonies and between the colonies and the metropole.