Inga Jacobs
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Email: imj3
st-andrews.ac.uk
Biography
Inga Jacobs is a visiting scientist in the Water Governance Research Group of Natural Resources and the Environment at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa. She is currently completing her third year of her PhD at the School of International Relations, University of St-Andrews, Scotland. Her educational qualifications include a Masters (Cum Laude) in International Studies from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, a Bachelors in International Relations at Grinnell College, Iowa (U.S.A) as the recipient of the South African Special Scholarship and an International Baccalaureate Diploma from Li Po Chun United World College, Hong Kong (China) as the recipient of the Prince of Wales Scholarship. Inga¿s broad research area includes hydropolitics within International Relations as it pertains to regional water resource management in Africa, as well as norms research within hydropolitics
Thesis Title
The Impact of the Normative on the Physical: how global, regional and local norms of water cooperating impact cooperative management strategies of the Orange-Senqu River basin and Nile Equatorial Lakes Sub-basin and the politics of water
Supervisor
Prof. Ian Taylor
Thesis Summary
Investigating normative convergence (water policy alignment by creating appropriate standards of behaviour) or the difficulties thereof using the Orange-Senqu River and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Sub-basin as case studies. This translates into investigating how states' interests and therefore behaviour is redefined/converges (or not) when regional institutions already in place facilitate regional integration/cooperation. Essentially, this investigation asks the question, can the interests (and also behaviour) of states who share an international river converge/or be redefined so that these states form a community of interests (share a 'water ethos') that can foster regional integration, cooperation and development and mitigate the securitization of water?
The PhD research focuses specifically on the impact of global, regional and domestic norms (norms of co-operation) within frames of securitization/desecuritization upon regional water resource management as well as their influence on the domestic structures of riparian water policy in the Nile and Orange River basins. This has necessitated a greater emphasis on the domestic (political, cultural, social) milieu of riparian states. In so doing, her research aims to explore the interface between these international norms and regional/domestic norms in an attempt to understand which norms gain acceptance and why, and how they become socialised in domestic contexts. She uses the Hydropolitical Complex Theory to understand norm convergence at a regional level as a means to understand co-operative management strategies. Additionally, her research also covers an examination of the make-up of epistemic communities and political elites (or norm entrepreneurs) particularly as they pertain to the neopatrimonial nature of sub-Saharan African states and how this affects the socialisation of various norms relating to water.
Research Interests
Conceptualising trust-building, constructivist theories of norm socialisation or resistance, sustainable knowledge transfer and inter-generational learning, Africanising capacity building, the interconnection of normative levels of scale.
Publications
Jacobs, I,. and Turton, A.R (in press) 'Chapter 16: South Africa' in O.M. Brandes, D.B. Brooks, and S. Gurman (eds) Living with the Water You Have: The Soft Path Approach to Water Management. Earthscan, London.
Turton, A.R., Ashton, P., and Jacobs, I. 2008. 'The Management of Shared Water Resources in Southern Africa' CSIR Report No. IMIS Contract No: 2009UNA073263853111. Draft form.
Nortje, K., Jacobs, I., St-Jaques, M., Funke, N, and Rascher, J., 2008. 'A Literature Survey of the Socio-ecological Role of Water in Relation to HIV/AIDS and Governance in the Water Sector'. DWAF and WRC Deliverable.
Jacobs, I. 2007. 'Framing the Orange: Socialisation of the Global Norm Set of Transboundary Co-operation in the Orange River basin within the frame of Desecuritisation' BISA conference proceedings, December 2007, Cambridge
Jacobs, I. 2007. 'Taking Water Hostage? The Impact of global environmental norms on Joint Water Resource Management in the Orange and Nile River Basins' CAIWA conference proceedings. CD-ROM, Basel
Conferences
2007
The Power of Water: Landscape, Water and the State in Southern Africa, University of Edinburgh
CAIWA, Basel, Switzerland ¿ presented paper referenced above
BISA, Cambridge, UK ¿ presented paper referenced above
2008
Symposium on Science and Policy Linkages, Entebbe, Uganda
