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Staff Profile

Emeritus Professor Esteban Castro

Emeritus Professor

Background

José Esteban Castro has an interdisciplinary social science background. He was trained as a sociologist (1983-1988) at the National University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina, where he became Head Teaching Assistant in Urban Sociology (Career of Sociology) and provided Research Methodology seminars at the Gino Germani Research Institute until 1990. He also studied Psychology at the same university (1984-1990). Castro obtained a Masters in Social Science at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Mexico (1990-1992), and became a Lecturer in Social Science at the same institution. In 1998, he received a DPhil in Politics from Oxford University. His dissertation focused on the interrelation between water politics and the formation of citizenship in Mexico, and was awarded the 1998 Post-graduate Prize of the British-Mexican Society. Before coming to Newcastle in 2005, he was a Senior Associate Researcher at Oxford University, Lecturer in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Lecturer in Political Ecology at University College London. In 2016 he became an Emeritus Professor at Newcastle University. He was Principal Investigator at the National Research and Technical Council (CONICET), Argentina between 2016 and 2022.

Castro's work has focused mainly on Latin America and Europe, in particular Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

Among other products of his research work in collaboration with international partners it is worth mentioning his coordination of the international research project Barriers and Conditions for the Involvement of Private Capital and Enterprise in Water Supply and Sanitation in Latin America and Africa: Seeking Economic, Social, and Environmental Sustainability (PRINWASS) (https://waterlat.org/projects-2/prinwass/)which was funded by the European Union. PRINWASS brought together social scientists, engineers and representatives of other disciplines relevant to water-related research from the UK, Finland, Greece, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, and Tanzania. After the project's successful completion in 2004, with theparticipation of most project members, Castro led the creation of the international research network WATERLAT-GOBACIT (www.waterlat.org), which he also coordinates. The network is dedicated to research, teaching and practical action in relation to the politics and management of water. It has over 400 members (https://waterlat.org/team/),including PhD and Master students. The members come from over 30 countries, most from the Americas and Europe, but also from Africa and Asia. However, the members are not only scholars and students based in academic institutions as the network also includes water experts and practitioners working in government departments, water utilities, Non Governmental Organizations, as well as representatives from social movements, water user groups, labour unions, and other relevant social actors, including organised indigenous communities and grassroots movements. As part of the network's activities of dissemination and engagement with wider publics, it features a Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Waterlat) and a Flickr photostream (https://www.flickr.com/photos/125391306@N03/). Within the network's framework,Castro has coordinated other international research projects and activities, including the project Democratisation of Water and Sanitation Governance by Means of Socio-Technical Innovation (DESAFIO)(www.desafioglobal.org), which focused on Brazil, Colombia and Argentina.


His research interests have focused on the long-term global processes of substantive democratisation, with emphasis on social struggles oriented at the defence of human rights, and the principles of solidarity, equality and justice against the recurrent threats posed by regressive politics, including genocidal political regimes of different sorts. His work on democratisation struggles led him to develop interest in water politics, a topic that became an important empirical research ground for him since the 1990s, among other issues focusing on the interrelations between the production and reproduction of socio-ecological inequalities and injustice and democratisation processes.


Castro is member of several professional institutions and academic networks, including the International Sociological Association (ISA) and the Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS). In 2012 he became a Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences (http://www.amc.mx/). He is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Research on Latin American Studies (IELAT), University of Alcala, Spain, and a Visiting Professor at the Postgraduate Programmes in Sociology(PPGS), and Urban Development (MDU), and at the Centre for Advanced Studies (CEA), Federal University of Pernambuco(UFPE), Brazil.


See Google Scholar: here.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6106-4313.

See also: Interviews, short articles, and public lectures.


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Publications