“The Green Transition is hydrosocial, with real impacts in the here and now.” This argument was delivered by Adam Taylor from King’s College London during his presentation at the CESASS Talk Series hosted by the Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies, Universitas Gadjah Mada on September 22, 2025.
The presentation, titled “Desalination at Indonesia’s industrial frontier: approaches to water scarcity in the Green Transition”, presented the early stages of his PhD research. His fieldwork will commence in 2026.
Massive investment in the extraction and processing of critical minerals, state-led industrialisation, and novel forms of green finance proliferate globally. By understanding this, struggles faced by communities at the frontiers of change be better explored. Adam’s project works to make visible the hydrosocial dynamics of the “green transition”, arguing that there is a consistency across global sites that can be uncovered through critical research.
Adam focuses on desalination as a source of freshwater in the industrial context of Gresik Regency, East Java. Gresik’s hydrosocial terrain is vast and textured, pulsing with the rhythms of rapid industrialisation. The geographies of a desalination plant in this context shape (and are shaped by) far-reaching social and ecological dynamics; processes that extend well beyond the plant itself, into the milkfish ponds and the mangroves, the toll roads and the factories.
Threading throughout Adam’s talk was the need to maintain a critical view of “water scarcity”, and the importance of seeing “scarcity” as socially (rather than naturally) constructed. Will desalination address water scarcity? What other dynamics are at play? And what alternative water futures are communities working to achieve?
Organized hybrid both online and offline, discussions with participants and students were engaged and thought-provoking, covering a wide range of topics from impact, ethics, community involvement, Indonesia’s archipelagic geography, and how to unpack the binary of the Global North/South.
Note: Adam will begin his fieldwork in 2026 on this topic and hopes to present his research again at CESASS in the future!
Reporter: CESASS Team