Yaffa Truelove, BA, BA, MA

PhD Student

My doctoral research investigates the ways in which urban water politics and everyday water practices are tied to the production of inequality in Delhi, India. I am exploring how experiences of an unequal urban water supply are productive of not only water inequality but urban subjectivities and unequal patterns of rights and citizenship in the city.

Biography

Qualifications

PhD Student, Human Geography, University of Cambridge (2009-Present)
MA, Geography, University of Colorado (2005-2007)
BA, International Studies, University of Washington (1996-2001)
BA, Comparative History of Idea, University of Washington (1996-2001)

Career

Consultant, Global Greengrants Fund, Boulder, USA (2008-2009)
Independent Researcher, New Delhi, India (2008)
Research Assistant, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2005-2007)
Assistant Program Coordinator, Center for Asian Studies, Boulder, USA (2007)
Project and Research Specialist, Center for Health Studies, Seattle, USA (2003-2004)
Research Assistant, Intergroup Dialogue, Education and Action (IDEA) Center, Seattle, USA (1999-2002)

Honors and Awards

Cambridge International Scholarship, University of Cambridge (2009 – Present)
Smuts Memorial International Research Scholarship, University of Cambridge (2010)
Philip Lake Fund, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (2011)
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship for Hindi, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2006)
Center for the Advancement of Research in the Social Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2006)
Benjamin Brown Fellowship for International Study (2005)
Beverly Sears Research Grant, University of Colorado, Boulder (2005)
Mortar Board Scholarship for International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2001)
Mary Gates Research Scholar Award, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2000-2001)

Research

Yaffa’s research examines how everyday experiences of water governance and criminality in urban India shape unequal resource access, differing subjectivities, and uneven patterns of rights, justice and citizenship in the city. This research is set within the context of contemporary Delhi and competing plans, claims and discourses aimed to transform the urban environment according to particular urban visions and a pleasing aesthetic ideal. Yaffa’s work analyzes water governance as a key aspect of competing efforts to ‘re-make’ Delhi, examining how water is tied to differing experiences of the state, justice, and social inclusion and exclusion in the city. Specifically, Yaffa’s research investigates the consequences of residents’ reliance on differing informal strategies to compensate for municipal deficiencies in the water supply in Delhi. This research seeks to further dissect how class, gender and other social identities are re-produced through differing experiences and understandings of water and its regulation in India’s capital. By drawing on political ecology and theorizations of the state and informality, Yaffa analyzes how the materiality of water practices and discourses on the urban environment and justice produce patterns of social difference and inequality in Delhi.

Publications

Selected Publications

Truelove, Y. 2011. (Re-)Conceptualizing water inequality in Delhi, India through a feminist political ecology framework. Geoforum 42 (2): 143-152.
Truelove, Y. and Mawdsley, E. 2011. Discourses of citizenship and criminality in clean, green Delhi. In A Companion to the Anthropology of India. (Ed.) Clark-Deces, Isabelle. Wiley-Blackwell: Malden.
Truelove, Y. (Review). 2006. Gender, Water and Development. Coles, A. and T. Wallace (Eds.) Gender, Place and Culture 13 (4): 471-474.
Silvey, R., Olson, B., and Truelove, Y. 2006. Migration and (Im)mobility. In Handbook of Political Geography, (Eds.) Robinson, J.D., Low, M. and Cox, K. Sage: London.
Nagda, B. A., Kim, C., and Truelove, Y. 2004. Learning about difference, learning to connect, learning to transgress. Journal of Social Issues. 60(1): 195- 214.

Teaching

Guest Lecturer, “The political ecology of water in Delhi, India” for MPhil Course, Urbanization, Environmental Change, and Environmental Politics, University of Cambridge (2011)
Guest Lecturer, “Resource inequality, social difference, and rights to the city: the urban political ecology of water in Delhi, India” for Contemporary India Seminar, University of Cambridge (2011)
Teaching Assistant for “Introduction to Human Geography,” University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2005)
Teaching Assistant for “Environment and Society,” University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2005)