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Violeta Cabello
- Position:
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ramon & Cajal Fellow - Main Research Field:
knowledge co-production and transdisciplinarity, social-ecological systems, water governance, wicked problems, environmental conflicts, uncertainty - BC3 Research Line:
4. Research Line Adaptation Lab - Contact information:
Email address: Violeta.Cabello@bc3research.org
Contact phone: +34 944 014 690 - Scopus Author ID: 55569452400
- ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4393-2433
- Download CV: CV_VCabello_2401_ENG
Short CV
I was born on a farm, somewhere in what was later called the 'emptied Spain'. I grew up among goats and peach trees until I moved to the big city as a teenager. I studied Environmental Sciences in Málaga, an MSc in Applied Ecology in Halmstad (Sweden), and another MSc in Environmental Hydrology in Granada. At that point, I realized that this knowledge was insufficient to answer the fundamental question of why do we continue to cause environmental harm. I decided to pursue a PhD in Human Geography at the University of Seville, in collaboration with Ecological Economics teams from the Institute for Environmental Sciences and Technology (ICTA) in Barcelona. During this period, I participated in my first European project, SWAN (Sustainable Water Action). Through my involvement in SWAN, I twice visited the University of Arizona in Tucson (USA). There I met an incredible group of young interdisciplinary scholars from all over the wolrd. We decided to experiment with a common case study on Tucson water governance and finally published a book. After four years, I could articulate what my PhD was about: combining qualitative and quantitative methods in a framework for assessing water management in two arid watersheds in Arizona and Almería. At the time of my defense, I felt maybe I could try become a researcher.
Luckily, I was hired as a postdoc 'data-cruncher' for another European project, MAGIC - Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity. MAGIC was an intense experience in project coordination and interdisciplinary collaboration. I learned from postnormal science scholars about extended peer communities and uncertainty. My expertise expanded from water to energy and food supply chains, and I contributed to the development of a science for governance approach named Quantitative Story Telling. During those years, I also joined a training program in group facilitation that was immensely transformative on many levels. I got pregnant and moved to Bilbao to start a family. This life change led me to ask myself what I actually wanted to do in my research. I then started a shift towards qualitative and participatory methods.
In January 2021, I joined BC3 thanks to a Juan de la Cierva fellowship. I initiated a participatory research on the environmental conflict surrounding the Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia (SE Spain), a project that will continue until the end of 2023. I do not have a predefined theoretical framework for this process but am working with ideas from knowledge coproduction, transformations to sustainability, sociology of emotions, and conflict transformation. I am reading feminist scholars like Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, María Puig de la Bellacasa, Marisol de la Cadena, Remedios Zafra, among others. These encounters are gradually shaping a new way of understanding the problems I care about and my role as a researcher. In my upcoming years with the Ramón y Cajal program, I plan to further engage with their ideas.
For more formal details about this journey, you can download my CV below or visit my blog at violetacabello.net.
Journal Articles
- 2024
- Muller, M.F., Rusca, M., Bertassello, L., Adams, E., Allaire, M., Cabello Villarejo, V., Levy, M., Mukherjee, J., Pokhrel, Y. 2024. Mapping the landscape of water and society research: Promising combinations of compatible and complementary disciplines. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water. 11. (2) DOI (10.1002/wat2.1701).
- 2023
- Cabello, V., Brugnach, M. 2023. Whose waters, whose nutrients? Knowledge, uncertainty, and controversy over eutrophication in the Mar Menor. Ambio. 52. (6) 1112-1124. DOI (10.1007/s13280-023-01846-z).
- Di Felice, L.J., Cabello, V., Ripa, M., Madrid-Lopez, C. 2023. Quantitative Storytelling: Science, Narratives, and Uncertainty in Nexus Innovations. Science Technology and Human Values. 48. (4) 861-887. DOI (10.1177/01622439211053819).
Affiliation previous to BC3
V. Cabello, D. Romero, A. Musicki, Â. Guimarães, B. Peñate. 2021. Co-creating narratives for WEF nexus governance: a Quantitative Story-Telling case study in the Canary Islands. Sustainability Science. 16, pp 1363–1374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00933-yCabello, V., Rener, A., Giampietro, M. 2019. Relational analyses of the nexus in arid land crop production. Advances in Water Resources. 130, 258-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.06.014
Serrano-Tovar, T., Peñate, B., de la Fuente, J. Cabello, V., Giampietro, M. 2019. Structuring an Integrated Water-Energy-Food Nexus Assessment of a Local Wind Energy Desalination System for Irrigation. Science of the Total Environment. 689, 945-957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.422
Cabello, V. Kovacic, Z., Van Cauwenbergh N. 2018. Unraveling narratives of water management: reflections on the first cycle of implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Southern Spain. Environmental Science and Policy. 85, 19-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.03.019
Flores Baquero O., Cabello V., Lara García A., Hernández-Mora N., del Moral, L. El debate sobre el Derecho Humano al Agua en España: la experiencia del Pacto Social por el Agua Pública. 2018. In: The struggle for democracy in Spain: grassroots initiatives to defend essential water services as a common good. WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network Special Issue 5(1):68-88. DOI: 10.5072/zenodo.212688
Pedregal B., Cabello V., Hernandez-Mora N., Limones N. and del Moral, L. 2015. Information and knowledge for water governance in the networked society. Water Alternatives 8(2):1-19
Hernandez-Mora N., Cabello V., di Stefano, L. and del Moral, L. 2015. Networked water citizen organizations in Spain: Potential for transformation of existing power structures for water management. Water Alternatives 8(2): 99-124
Cabello, V., Willaarts, B., Aguilar, M., and del Moral, L. 2015. River basins as social-ecological systems: Linking levels of societal and ecosystem metabolism of water in a semiarid watershed. Ecology and Society 20(3):20. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-07778-200320
Cabello Villarejo, V., Madrid Lopez, C. 2014. Water use in arid rural systems and the integration of water and agricultural policies in Europe: the case of Andarax river basin. Environment, Development and Sustainability 16(4):957–975. 10.1007/s10668-014-9535-8
Ravera F., Gamboa G., Scheidel A., Dell’Angelo J., Serrano T., Mingorría S., Cabello V., Ariza P., Arizpe N. 2014. Pathways of rural change: An integrated assessment of the metabolic patterns of emerging ruralities. Environment, Development and Sustainability 16(4):1-10. 10.1007/s10668-014-9534-9
Madrid C., Cabello V., Giampietro M. 2013. Water-Use Sustainability in Socio-Ecological Systems: A Multiscale Integrated Approach. BioScience. 63(1):14-24. 10.1525/bio.2013.63.1.6
Sova Patra Das T., Avila, C., Cabello V., Castillo F., Sarkar D. Lahiri S., Jana B. 2012. Cadmium tolerance and antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli isolated from waste stabilization ponds. Indian journal of experimental biology 50(4):300-7
Book chapters
- 2024
- Violeta Cabello; Eduardo Serrano. 2024 (Forthcoming). Abandono y recomposición más allá de los paisajes capitalocénicos. In: Gabriel Gatti, Iñaki Rubio. In: Paisajes de abandono. Bellaterra.
- 2023
- Aitor Zulueta, Estibaliz Sanz, Jaione Ortiz de Zárate,Violeta Cabello. 2023 Retos medioambientales de Euskadi. In: Editorial Catarata. In: La mirada larga retos del futuro para la ciudadanía vasca. Editorial Catarata Fuencarral, 70 Madrid. 155-171. ISBN 978-84-1352-800-7.
- Violeta Cabello. 2023 La espera en la pérdida ecológica. In: Gabriel Gatti, Saioa Olmo, Álvaro Villar. In: Contar la espera. 1 Bilbao. Universidad del País Vasco. 13-14. ISBN 978-84-1319-543-8.
Affiliation previous to BC3
Romero Manrique, D., Cabello V., and Guimarães Pereira, A. 2020. Alternative water sources as conflict solver in nexus governance. In The MAGIC Consortium: The Nexus Times. Bergen: Megaloceros Press, Issue XI: Governing the nexus. May 2020. pp. 135-136.Cabello, V., Renner, A. 2020. Coupled monitoring of water and agricultural policies: The challenge of indicators. In The MAGIC Consortium: The Nexus Times. Bergen: Megaloceros Press, Issue X: Water-Agriculture Nexus. Sep 2019. pp. 102-104.
Ripa, M., Cabello V. 2020. Water for energy: quantifying the massive amounts of water that go unaccounted for. In The MAGIC Consortium: The Nexus Times. Bergen: Megaloceros Press, Issue VII: Water-Energy Nexus. Dec 2018. pp. 61-65.
Cabello V., Serrano T. 2020. What if healthy diets had a hidden cost? In The MAGIC Consortium: The Nexus Times. Bergen: Megaloceros Press, Issue IV: Outsourcing. March 2018. pp. 36-37.
Cabello V., Hernandez-Mora N., Serrat-Capdevila A., del Moral L. and Curley, E. 2017. Implications of spatially neutral groundwater management. In Poupeau F., Gupta H., Serrat-Capdevila A., Sans-Fuentes M., Harris S. and Hayde L. (Eds) Water Bankruptcy in the land of plenty. Steps towards a transatlantic and transdisciplinary assessment of water scarcity in Southern Arizona, pp. 291-310
Serrat-Capdevila A., Cabello V., Boyanova, K., Poupeau, F., Hernandez-Mora N., Gupta, H., Yang Z., Segura S., Benites E., Yavena R., Coeurdary M. Cortinas J, Khun K., Harris S., Sans M., Curley E., del Moral L., Valdes J., Schneier G., King O., Rodriges D., Salmoral G. 2017. Bringing all the stories together: Beyond the Tucson case study. In Poupeau F., Gupta H., Serrat-Capdevila A., Sans-Fuentes M., Harris S. and Hayde L. (Eds) Water Bankruptcy in the land of plenty. Steps towards a transatlantic and transdisciplinary assessment of water scarcity in Southern Arizona, pp. 401-415.
Other Publications
- 2023
- Paula Zuluaga-Guerra, Violeta Cabello Villarejo, Paula Novo, Marcela Brugnach, María Mancilla-García, Josune Urrutia Asua. 2023. Ecotono(s): Diálogos compartidos.
- Varjú, V., Tagai, G., Cabello, V., Sorman, A.H., Robison, R., Foulds, C., Bálint, D., Galende Sánchez, E., Zindulková, K., Pálné Kovács, I., et al. 2023. Supporting the Social Sciences & Humanities across Southern and Central & Eastern Europe: A Position Statement for international climate, energy and mobility research. SSH CENTRE.
Affiliation previous to BC3
Guimarães Pereira A., Cabello V., Romero Manrique Lara D., Rosa P., Waylen K., Blackstock K. 2020. Lessons Learned in Interaction with Policy Actors and Institutions, MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 2.2, 16 November 2020. Available at: http://www.magic-nexus.eu/documents/deliverable-22-lessons-learned-interaction-policy-actors-and-institutionsGuimarães Pereira, Â., Romero Manrique, D., Cabello, V., Corral Quintana, S., Rosa, P. 2020. 'Lessons learned in operation of the Nexus dialogue platform', MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 2.3, 12 November 2020. http://www.magic-nexus.eu/documents/deliverable-23-lessons-learned-operation-nexus-dialogue-platform
Guimarães Pereira, Â., Cabello, V., De Felice, L., De Olde, E., Giampietro, M., Kok, A., Kroll, M., Madrid, C., Monterrey, A., Muscat, A., Musicki, A., Peñate, B., Ripa, M., Ripoll-Bosch, R., Romero, D. Sindt, J., Velasco, R. 2020. – Meetings of Innovation Teams – MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Milestone 11.
Cabello-Villarejo V., Musicki Savic A., Romero Manrique, D., Monterrey Viña A., Guimarães Pereira Â., Peñate Suárez B. 2020. Solving water problems vs. creating new ones: the use of alternative water resources for irrigation. MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 6.7, 27 February 2020. Available at: https://magic-nexus.eu/documents/deliverable-d67-alternative-water-sources-innovation
Krol, M.S., Cabello-Villarejo V., Cadillo-Benalcazar J., de Olde E., Di Felice L., Giampietro M., Muscat A., Renner A., Ripa M., Ripoll Bosch R., Serrano-Tovar T., and Verburg CCA. 2018. Report on exploratory applications of the MuSIASEM Toolbox in Quantitative Story Telling for anticipation. MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669), Project Deliverable 4.3. Available at: http://www.magic-nexus.eu/documents/d43-report-exploratory-applications-musiasem-toolbox-quantitative-story-telling
R. Ripoll Bosch, M. Giampietro, V. Cabello, J. Cadillo Benalcazar, I.J.M. de Boer, L. Di Felice, M.S. Krol, K. Matthews, D. Miller, A. Muscat, E. de Olde, A. Renner, M. Ripa, T. Serrano-Tovar, C.C.A. Verburg , D. Wardell-Johnson. 2018. Report on EU social-ecological systems. MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 4.2. Available at: https://www.magic-nexus.eu/documents/d42-report-eu-socio-ecological-systems
Cabello V., Kovacic Z., Giampietro M. 2017. Bridging biophysical, economic and ecological quantitative analysis across levels – the case of greenhouse vegetable production in Almeria In: Ripa, M., Giampietro, M. (Eds) Report on Nexus Security using Quantitative Story-Telling. MAGIC (H2020–GA 689669) Project Deliverable 4.1. Available at: http://magic-nexus.eu/documents/d41-report-nexus-security-using-quantitative-story-telling
De Stefano, L., Cabello, V., Hernandez-Mora, N. 2017. Datos abiertos en el sector del agua en España. Observatorio del Agua de la Fundación Botin.
Cabello, V. Principios, objetivos e instrumentos para la transparencia, la participación pública y la rendición de cuentas en la gestión urbana del agua. Ponencia para las jornadas sobre 'Remunicipalización y bases para la gestión del ciclo urbano del agua'. Barcelona, 21 de marzo de 2017.
BC3 Working Papers & Policy Briefings
- 2023
- [Mar Menor - 2] Aprendizajes de un proceso de co-investigación con actores sociales del Mar Menor | Sobre cómo fomentar la participación social Violeta Cabello, Paula Zuluaga
- [Mar Menor - 1] Aprendizajes de un proceso de co-investigación con actores sociales del Mar Menor | Sobre la problemática y los sectores involucrados Violeta Cabello, Paula Zuluaga