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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

IGS: Current and Recent Graduate Research

Eelke Kraak

Dams of Damocles: between rivers, states and geopolitics

Supervisor(s):
Contact Info:
  • Address: Brasenose College, Oxford OX1 4 AJ, United Kingdom

Academic Profile

Eelke Kraak is currently a DPhil student at the School of Geography and the Environment. In 2010, he completed his MPhil in geography with distinction also at the University of Oxford and earlier in 2008 he finished his BSc cum laude at the University College Utrecht in the Netherlands. Eelke has worked for as a researcher for the Netherland Embassy in Moscow and as a Visiting Associate for the Boston Consulting Group.

Awards
  • 2010: Senior Hulme Scholarship, Brasenose College
  • 2010: Roger Hay's Memorial Trust Scholarship
  • 2010: Hendrik Mullerfonds Scholarship
  • 2010: Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Scholarship
  • 2009: Huygens Scholarship, Government of the Netherlands
  • 2009: St. Hilda's College Graduate Scholarship
  • 2008: Huygens Scholarship, Government of the Netherlands

Current Research

The use, allocation, and management of transboundary water resources has always been a point of contention among people, communities, and nation-states. This is not surprising, because limited water resources are critical to many aspects of daily life and fundamental to key sectors of the economy. This makes the governance of transboundary water resources a highly non-linear business: conventional legal or economic models do not sufficiently explain the processes of hydro-politics. Ultimately, the politics of transboundary water resources is a politics of power. Dams are central to the governance of transboundary rivers, because dams make a river 'governable' and are expressions of power. Eelke's research attempts to understand decision-making processes in the operation and construction of large dams because of their pivotal role in hydro-politics.

Eelke's broader research project aims to contribute to theoretical understandings of water politics, water security and transboundary river management, while providing a sound empirical basis through extensive fieldwork. For this reason, a small-N comparative study has been his method of choice, with case studies of the Syr Darya basin (Toktogul Dam) and the Blue Nile (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam). In comparing the two cases, he aims to address the broader questions of power and hydro-politics by assessing the role of large dams in river governance. What actors, processes, and interactions drive the operation or construction of a large dam?