Biographical Information

Ben Crow is a professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz. He trained and worked as an engineer in London and Africa, and was an activist and volunteer in South Asia, before becoming a social scientist. His PhD is from Edinburgh University in Scotland, and he taught at the Open University in UK and at Stanford and UC Berkeley before coming to UCSC. He has done research on conflict and cooperation over international rivers in South Asia, leading to a book Sharing the Ganges: the politics and technology of river development; on traders, township markets and the making of social classes in rural Bangladesh (Markets, Class and Social Change: Trading Networks and Poverty in South Asia); on global inequalities (The UC Atlas of Global Inequality (online) and The Atlas of Global Inequalities, with Suresh Lodha). His current work studies how poor women, men and children gain access to water in urban slums in the global south, with a focus on cities in Kenya. He is seeking funding for a comparative study of four cities to look at ‘Urban capabilities and the transformation of women’s work.’

See also: Sociology@UCSantaCruz announces the passing of Professor Ben Crow

Research Interests
Sociology of water, urban deprivation and capability justice, global inequalities, sociology of development.
Previous Education/Training
1980 – Ph.D., Science/Development, University of Edinburgh
1970 – BSc., Civil Engineering with Honors, Polytechnic of Central London