Co Director, Program on Water Governance
Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability
Professor, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice

Leila M Harris is a Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and also in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. Professor Harris is a settler scholar living and working in unceded Coast Salish territory, with family ancestry from Mediterranean and European regions (she/her pronouns). A socio-cultural and political geographer, her work connects political ecology, nature-society studies, and issues of socio-cultural difference, inequality, and politics.

Specific projects have investigated water politics, governance, state building, and scale in the Tigris-Euphrates basin in Turkey, concerns related to gender dimensions of irrigation and water governance, and practices and narratives related to everyday water access and inequities in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa.

Other research efforts have focused on water governance and water quality in Canada, ranging from concerns regarding water quality, access, and governance for First Nations in British Columbia to narrative and arts-based inquiry focused on the non-material dimensions of water insecurity.

2023:

Lesnikov, P. Kunz, N. C. and L. M. Harris. 2023. Gender and sustainability reporting – Critical analysis of gender approaches in mining. Resources Policy 81. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103273

Shah, S. H., Harris, L. M. Menghwani, V., Stoler, J., Brewis, A., Miller, J. D., Workman, C. L., Adams, E. A., Pearson, A. L., Hagaman, A., Wutich, A., and S. L. Young. 2023. Variations in household water affordability and water insecurity: An intersectional perspective from 18 low- and middle-income countries. Environment and Planning F. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825231156900

Boelens, R., Escobar, A. Bakker, K. Hommes, L. Swyngedouw, E. Hogenboom, B. Huijbens, E. H. Jackson, S. Vos, J. Harris, L. M. Joy, K. J. De Castro, F. Duarte-Abadía, B. Tubino de Souza, D. Lotz-Sisitka, H. Hernández-Mora, N. Martínez-Alier, J. Roca-Servat, D. Perreault, T. Sanchis-Ibor, C. Suhardiman, D. Ulloa, A. Wals, A. Hoogesteger, J. Hidalgo-Bastidas, J. P. Roa-Avendaño, T. Veldwisch, G. J. Woodhouse P. and K. M. Wantzen. 2022. Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice. The Journal of Peasant Studies. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120810

Wilson, N. J., Montoya, T., Lambrinidou, Y., Harris, L. M., Pauli, B. J., McGregor, D., Patrick, R. J., Gonzalez, S., Pierce, G., and A. Wutich. 2023. From “trust” to “trustworthiness”: Retheorizing dynamics of trust, distrust, and water security in North America. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 6 (1): 42–68. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221101459

2022:

Sengupta, M. and L. Harris. 2022. Interrogating Differences: Intersectionality and Participatory Livelihood Development in the Upland forest of Tripura. Geoforum 130: 59-68. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.02.002

Tremblay, C. and L. M. Harris. 2022. Water governance in two urban African contexts: agency and action through participatory video. Research for All 6 (1): 1–19. doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/RFA.06.1.04

2021:

L. M. Harris. 2021. Everyday Experiences of Water Insecurity: Insights from Underserved Areas of Accra, Ghana. Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 150 (4): 64-84.

Shah, S. H. and L. M. Harris. 2021. Beyond local case studies in political-ecology: Spatializing agricultural water infrastructure in Maharashtra using a critical, multi-methods, and multi-scalar approach. Annals of the American Association of American Geographers. doi: http://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2021.1941746

Shah, S. Harris, L. M. Wittman, H. and M. Johnson. 2021. A ‘drought-free’ Maharashtra? Politicizing water conservation for rain-dependent agriculture. Water Alternatives 14 (2): 573-596.

G. McDowell, Koppes, M. Harris, L. M. Chan, K. Price, M. Lama D. and G. Jiménez. 2021. Lived Experiences of ‘peak water’ in the high mountains of Nepal and Peru Climate and Development. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2021.1913085

L. M. Harris. 2021. Towards Enriched Narrative Political Ecologies EPE Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848621101010677

Campero, C., Harris, L. M., and N. C. Kunz. 2021. De-politicising seawater desalination: Environmental Impact Assessments in the Atacama mining Region, Chile. Environmental Science & Policy 120: 187-194. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2021.03.004.

Stoler, J. Miller, J. D. Brewis, A. Freeman, M. C. Harris, L. M. Jepson, W. Pearson, A. L. Rosinger, A. Y. Shah, S. H. Staddon, C. Workman, C. Wutich, A. Young, S. L. Adams, E. Ahmed, F. Alexander, M. Asiki, G. Balogun, M. Boivin, M. J. Carrillo, G. Chapman, K. Cole, S.  Collins, S. M. Eini-Zinab, H. Escobar-Vargas, J. Ghattas, H. Ghorbani, M. Hagaman, A. Hawley, N. Jamaluddine, Z. Krishnakumar, D. Maes, K. Mathad, J. Maupin, J. Owuor, P. M. Melgar-Quiñonez, H. Morales, M. M. Moran, J. Omidvar, N. Rasheed, S. Samayoa-Figueroa, L. Sánchez-Rodriguez, E. C. Santoso, M. V. Schuster, R. C. Sheikhi, M. Srivastava, S. Sullivan, A. Tesfaye, Y. Triviño, N. Trowell, A. Tshala-Katumbay, D. and R. Tutu. 2021. Household water insecurity will complicate the ongoing COVID-19 response: Evidence from 29 sites in 23 low- and middle-income countries. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health 234. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2021.113715.

2020:

Harris, L. M., Staddon, C., Wutich, A., Budds, J., Jepson, W., Pearson, A. L., and E. A. Adams. 2020. Water sharing and the right to water: Refusal, rebellion and everyday resistance. Political Geography. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102245

McDowell, G, Harris, L. M. Koppes, M. Price, M. Chan, K. and D. Lama. 2020. From Needs to Actions: prospects for planned adaptations in high mountain communities. Climatic Change 163: 953–972. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02920-1

Meehan, K. Jepson, W. Harris, L. M. Wutich, A. Beresford, M. Fencl, A. London, J. Pierce, G. Radonic, L. Wells, C. Wilson, N. J. Adams, E. A. Arsenault, R. Brewis, A. Harrington, V. Lambrinidou, Y. McGregor, D. Patrick, R. Pauli, B. Pearson, S. L. Shah, S. Splichalova, D. Workman, C. and S. Young. 2020. Exposing the Myths of Household water Insecurity in the global North: a critical review. Wires Water 7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1486

Harris, L. M. 2020. Assessing States and Evaluating Publics: Perspectives on water service delivery and evolving state-society relations in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa, Environment and Planning C 38(2): 290-311. doi:10.1177/2399654419859365

2019:

Brisbois, B. W., Spiegel, J. M., and L. M. Harris. 2019. Health, environment and colonial legacies: Situating the science of pesticides, bananas and bodies in Ecuador. Social Science & Medicine 239. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112529

Hommes, L., Boelens, R., Harris, L. M. and G. J. Veldwisch. 2019. Rural–urban water struggles: urbanizing hydrosocial territories and evolving connections, discourses and identities. Water International 44 (2): 81-94. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2019.1583311

Hommes, L., Veldwisch, G.J., Harris, L. M. and R. Boelens. 2019. Evolving connections, discourses and identities in rural–urban water struggles. Water International 44(2): 243-253. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2019.1583312

Wilson, N. J., Harris, L. M., Joseph-Rear, A., Beaumont, J. and T. Satterfield. 2019. Water is Medicine: Reimagining Water Security through Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Relationships to Treated and Traditional Water Sources in Yukon, Canada. Water 11(3): 624. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/w11030624

Killam Laureate for Excellence in Mentorship 2021
Senior category, UBC. Recognizes outstanding mentorship of numerous graduate students over many years.