Project description
Exploring the financialisation of water
Water is an essential resource. However, it is increasingly being treated as a financial asset under the emerging field of blue finance. Can this ensure fair and sustainable access to water? Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the BLUFIN project aims to answer this question. It will conduct an economic anthropology study that investigates how finance professionals in Switzerland and Liechtenstein value, imagine and shape the ownership and management of water within this growing investment landscape. Through six months of ethnographic fieldwork across banks, asset management firms, pension funds and private equity institutions, the project will map the scale of blue finance, document how water investments are conceptualised and analyse how financial actors influence water governance.
Objective
This economic anthropology study, BLUFIN, explores the emergent field of blue finance to examine how the leaders and experts of financial institutions value, envision, and influence the ownership and management of water resources.
'Blue finance' captures financial institutions’ growing pursuit of water investments, treating them as financial assets expected to grow in future monetary value with water’s increasing scarcity. Investments in water are categorised under the umbrella of ‘sustainable finance’, and are presented by its proponents as financial markets’ effort to protect future water resources.This study questions whether blue finance can ensure equitable and sustainable management of water resources for all. To do so, this project proposes 3 research objectives that will; 1) examine the proliferation and size of blue finance in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, 2) produce an ethnographic account of how finance professionals value and envision the future of water investments, and 3) explore how finance professionals influence the management and ownership of water.
To pursue these objectives, 3 months of ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted in Switzerland and 3 months in Liechtenstein within financial institutions (banks, private equity firms, pension funds, asset management firms). Both countries share the Swiss franc as currency, and are internationally renowned for their globally connected finance sectors, holding roughly a third of the world’s financial wealth. This makes the two countries ideal blue finance case studies.
BLUFIN will produce a multitude of outputs incl. 3 peer-reviewed journal articles, a short video public engagement series, and it will transfer knowledge via teaching/workshops/conferences. Access to water represents a global challenge, essential for humans and non-human species worldwide. Studying how blue finance may affect future management and ownership of this precious resource is a necessary and pressing research endeavour.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences hydrology
- social sciences sociology anthropology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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3012 Bern
Switzerland
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