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Jorge Ortiz Moreno

The Journey to a PhD 

My first job was 13 years ago, with a professor from my bachelor's degree who invited me to work as a research assistant. I joined a project about the alternative technologies available in Mexico and how they supported the fulfilment of basic human needs such as energy, sanitation, shelter and access to water. 

I did my masters in Urban Development Planning at UCL, focusing on environmental challenges in cities. After that I worked for local governments in Mexico for five years. However, in 2018 I decided that it was time to move on and focus my academic career on my interest in alternative technologies.  

When I was preparing my PhD proposal, the incoming mayor of Mexico City announced that she was going to implement a large-scale social policy to support the installation of rainwater facilities in vulnerable homes. When that happened, I thought, ‘Oh, well, I need to address this case’. Mexico City, like other cities across the world, has been dealing over the past decades with a severe water crisis. 

The Research 

I am between two academic communities; urban development and sustainability transitions (how we can incorporate new technologies and practices towards sustainability). I am based at IDS, under the supervision of Dr Jaideep Gupte, but I am also a supervisee of Prof. Adrian Smith from SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit) in the Business School. 

It has been great to have the complementarity between my two supervisors since their expertise is on different fields. My focus has been exactly at the intersection of these different scholar communities; different literatures and different approaches to reality. 

I figuratively took a picture of the current situation in terms of rainwater harvesting in the city. Half of my participants have incorporated rainwater harvesting facilities in their homes. I also interviewed different people from the government, water management institutions, academics, experts, and companies proving rainwater harvesting infrastructure.  

I met many of my participants online on social media. This was partly as a result of the challenging restrictions caused by the Covid pandemic. There is an assumption that to reach socioeconomically marginalised people you need to travel far to make contact. It was interesting to find that digitally we socialise in the same platforms. 

The water crisis in Mexico City is differentiated. Many people talk about how one day we're going to run out of water. In reality, we have some populations that have unlimited access to water while other populations can only access minimum amounts because of structural social inequality. 

The experience and adoption of rainwater harvesting technology is as heterogenous as the crisis. Some people in Mexico City are not very aware that there is a water crisis because they don't experience a problem. Others don't have problems accessing water, but choose to adopt the technology because they are environmentally conscious. For them it's a challenge to change their habits to be coherent with their values. Some populations are in a situation of water stress, but it’s not very severe. For them it is not the solution to their problem but they say, ‘for some time of the year I can sleep because I'm not worried’. Then we have people in the most difficult socio-economic situations where they have to spend a lot of time dealing with intermediaries in control of water and sometimes paying for expensive water trucks. Getting this technology becomes an asset that really changes their lives. 

I have found that rainwater harvesting is not the solution to structural inequality but it can significantly help marginalised populations to cope with water scarcity. If you assess rainwater harvesting quantitatively, it does not make sense for many water experts. However, when you see qualitatively how this technology can really change the lives of many people it becomes a very practical alternative.

Achievements and the Future 

My biggest achievement is being a first-generation PhD student. This has come with many challenges and I have had to adapt many times to situations that are different from the context and the background I come from. However, it has been a great journey over the past few years. 

I was appointed as Chief Resilience Office of Colima, Mexico. This was part of the ‘100 Resilient Cities’ initiative and I led the formulation of the first Urban Resilience Strategy of the city. I am also Co-founder of Resiliente: Urban Solutions Studio, a consultancy focused on urban resilience and strategic planning.

I am proud that I have had the opportunity to explore the same challenges but from different perspectives. My career has been versatile; working in research, teaching, for local government and in consultancy.  

My research contributes to bringing the realities of post-colonial countries into the literature, leading to a more plural perspective of how we can transition towards sustainability. There is an epistemological challenge. Often the theories and knowledge from the Global North are universalised, regardless of the realities of many countries in the Global South that are rarely represented in literature.  

We can learn from the journey of Mexico City and can apply this knowledge in other places facing similar challenges. There are many cities around the world dealing with problems of water scarcity or unequal access to water. 

I like research because it's a creative process: you have an idea, then you collect data and analyse it, and through your results you create knowledge. At the end of the PhD that creative process is not finished, as there are many other products that can be delivered for various audiences.  

My biggest goal in the next stage of my career is to develop my own research agenda. I want to continue working with the knowledge outcomes from this study, as well as addressing other challenges that we have, particularly in cities of the Global South, and examining other technological alternatives. 

Interview by Shona Clements