Edisson Aguilar Torres
Science in Human Culture 2025-2027
Department of History
Areas of Interest Latin American and Caribbean History, Environmental History; History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, History of State Formation, History of Water Supply and Treatment, and Colombian History Biography Edisson Aguilar Torres holds a PhD in history from King's College London (2025). His research explores the interconnection between state formation and the construction of small-scale infrastructure for water supply systems in the Colombian countryside during the 20th century, as well as the global history of water treatment technologies. His book manuscript, Pipes for the Community: Water, Infrastructure, and State Formation in Colombia, 1942–1989, challenges notions of the state as an overly centralising project that destroys local knowledge and practices by imposing large-scale infrastructures. Instead, it shows how the Colombian state decided to partially delegate water provision in rural areas to local communities, using a system that relied on state engineering, small-scale water supply systems, local management and maintenance, and Indigenous and peasant labour traditions. The rationale behind that decision combined ideals of citizenship participation with more practical concerns about the costs for the state of providing public goods directly. Insufficient investment, though, hindered full access to drinking water in the countryside, creating water inequalities that persist today. The book addresses the socio-technical system that came to dominate water supply in the Colombian rural areas as a way to understand the importance of small-scale technology in the landscape of modernity. Courses Taught The Global History of Technology (Winter 2026), Water and Environmental History (Spring 2026)
