- Geography, Development Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Political Ecology, and 58 moreEnvironmental Geography, Nationalism And State Building, Political Geography, Critical Geography, Environmental Justice, Feminist Geography, Economic geography (Geography) (Geography), Gender and the Environment, Gender, Poverty, Modern Turkey, Water, Turkey, Kurdish Studies, Israel, Water governance, Kurds, Livelihoods, Critical Cartography, Water Politics, Critical GIS, Jordan (History), Landlessness, Politics of Scale, Environmental Sustainability, Water resources, Critical Development Studies, Critical Geopolitics, Natural Resource Management, Ghana, Governance Reforms, Postcolonial Theory, Water governance and management in Central Asia, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Civil Society, Neoliberalism, Political Geography and Geopolitics, Kurdish Question in Turkey, Indigenous Studies, Environmental Politics, Environmental Sociology, Privatization, Transboundary Water Issues, Environmental Policy and Governance, Big Dams, Cartography, Water Security, Border Studies, Middle East Studies, Global South, Middle East Politics, Critical Theory, Human Right to Water, Global Justice, Political Ecology (Anthropology), Hydropolitics, Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, and Daniel Heath Justiceedit
- Leila Harris works on social, cultural and equity dimensions of environment and development issues. Work has focused ... moreLeila Harris works on social, cultural and equity dimensions of environment and development issues. Work has focused specifically on feminist political ecology, water access, politics and governance and environmental justice and has focused on Turkey, South Africa, Ghana and the Canadian context.edit
Research Interests:
Compounding systems of marginalization differentiate and shape water-related risks. Yet, quantitative water security scholarship rarely assesses such risks through intersectionality, a paradigm that conceptualizes and examines racial,... more
Compounding systems of marginalization differentiate and shape water-related risks. Yet, quantitative water security scholarship rarely assesses such risks through intersectionality, a paradigm that conceptualizes and examines racial, gendered, class, and other oppressions as interdependent. Using an intersectionality approach, we analyze the relationships between household head gender and self-reported socio-economic status, and water affordability (proportion of monthly income spent on water) and water insecurity (a composite measure of 11 self-reported experiences) for over 4000 households across 18 low- and middle-income countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. Interaction terms and composite categorical variables were included in regression models, adjusting for putative confounders. Among households with a high socio-economic status, the proportion of monthly income spent on water differed by household head gender. In contrast, greater household water insecurity was associated with lower socio-economic status and did not meaningfully vary by the gender of the household head. We contextualize and interpret these experiences through larger systems of power and privilege. Overall, our results provide evidence of broad intersectional patterns from diverse sites, while indicating that their nature and magnitude depend on local contexts. Through a critical reflection on the study’s value and limitations, including the operationalization of social contexts across different sites, we propose methodological approaches to advance multi-sited and quantitative intersectional research on water affordability and water insecurity. These approaches include developing scale-appropriate models, analyzing complementarities and differences between site-specific and multi-sited data, collecting data on gendered power relations, and measuring the impacts of household water insecurity.
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Shah, S.H., Harris, L.M. (2021). Beyond local case studies in political-ecology: Spatializing agricultural water infrastructure in Maharashtra using a critical, multi-methods, and multi-scalar approach. Annals of the American Association... more
Shah, S.H., Harris, L.M. (2021). Beyond local case studies in political-ecology: Spatializing agricultural water infrastructure in Maharashtra using a critical, multi-methods, and multi-scalar approach. Annals of the American Association of American Geographers http://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2021.1941746
Political ecologists (PEs) have powerfully illuminated dynamics responsible for the uneven distribution of resources and risk in society. However, localized PE approaches have been criticized as insufficient for producing careful generalizations needed to affect policymaking. We offer an approach to critically explore factors that shape the distribution of climate adaptation interventions—and their potential equity and sustainability-related implications—across larger, policy-relevant scales. Our methodology uses local field-work findings to inform secondary data collection and specify mesoscale regression models, which reanalyze, at larger spatial scales, potentially meaningful relationships between social, economic, and environmental factors and the distribution of adaptation initiatives. An epistemological heuristic is offered to navigate the consistencies and inconsistencies between local qualitative and mesoscale quantitative data to develop a more comprehensive, yet partial, understanding of scaled political–ecological relations. The integrative approach is applied to analyze how sociospatial and biophysical characteristics affect the distribution of more than 16,000 farm ponds across 352 subdistricts in Maharashtra, an emerging adaptation subsidized by the state government to reduce crop risks from precipitation variability. The degree of compatibility between local qualitative and regional-scale quantitative results can support the development of novel research questions and actionable science for policy change.
Political ecologists (PEs) have powerfully illuminated dynamics responsible for the uneven distribution of resources and risk in society. However, localized PE approaches have been criticized as insufficient for producing careful generalizations needed to affect policymaking. We offer an approach to critically explore factors that shape the distribution of climate adaptation interventions—and their potential equity and sustainability-related implications—across larger, policy-relevant scales. Our methodology uses local field-work findings to inform secondary data collection and specify mesoscale regression models, which reanalyze, at larger spatial scales, potentially meaningful relationships between social, economic, and environmental factors and the distribution of adaptation initiatives. An epistemological heuristic is offered to navigate the consistencies and inconsistencies between local qualitative and mesoscale quantitative data to develop a more comprehensive, yet partial, understanding of scaled political–ecological relations. The integrative approach is applied to analyze how sociospatial and biophysical characteristics affect the distribution of more than 16,000 farm ponds across 352 subdistricts in Maharashtra, an emerging adaptation subsidized by the state government to reduce crop risks from precipitation variability. The degree of compatibility between local qualitative and regional-scale quantitative results can support the development of novel research questions and actionable science for policy change.
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L. M. Harris (2021) Everyday Experiences of Water Insecurity: Insights from Underserved Areas of Accra, Ghana. Daedalus (Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), 150 (4): 64-84. At least half of Accra's residents do not... more
L. M. Harris (2021) Everyday Experiences of Water Insecurity: Insights from Underserved Areas of Accra, Ghana. Daedalus (Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), 150 (4): 64-84.
At least half of Accra's residents do not enjoy safe, secure, and affordable access to water on a regular basis. Focused on underserved communities in and around urban Accra, this essay highlights the meanings and importance of water insecurity for residents' daily lives. In particular, this essay extends beyond the well-established ways that the lack of safe and affordable access conditions poor public health outcomes, to a broader understanding of well-being informed by residents' own experiences of irregular and insecure access to water. This essay thus seeks to broaden understandings of water insecurity beyond the basic and minimum access required for daily needs, and to consider broader social-contextual dynamics, such as reported experiences of stress or conflict, that residents face daily in negotiating water insecurities.1
At least half of Accra's residents do not enjoy safe, secure, and affordable access to water on a regular basis. Focused on underserved communities in and around urban Accra, this essay highlights the meanings and importance of water insecurity for residents' daily lives. In particular, this essay extends beyond the well-established ways that the lack of safe and affordable access conditions poor public health outcomes, to a broader understanding of well-being informed by residents' own experiences of irregular and insecure access to water. This essay thus seeks to broaden understandings of water insecurity beyond the basic and minimum access required for daily needs, and to consider broader social-contextual dynamics, such as reported experiences of stress or conflict, that residents face daily in negotiating water insecurities.1
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Intersectionality is used in academic and policy circles to show how mutually constitutive axes of power and social difference intersect to shape lived experiences of inequality. The concept has made inroads in investigations of... more
Intersectionality is used in academic and policy circles to show how mutually constitutive axes of power and social difference intersect to shape lived experiences of inequality. The concept has made inroads in investigations of participatory development to examine people’s engagement, participatory experiences, and outcomes. However, in doing so, there is sometimes a propensity to treat categories of difference as fixed or given. This myopic focus encourages generalizations around how people and groups experience power and difference, and obscures a complex understanding of how these are lived, enacted, and conditioned by diverse subject positions and embodied experiences and practices in participatory development- thus shaping intersectional experiences and project outcome. This ethnographic case study shows how a tribal woman from an ethnic minority- named Purati- experiences, performs, and contests multiple aspects of difference and power in a participatory livelihood project in upland Tripura. Using feminist insights on intersectionality, interpellation, and performativity, and feminist political ecology and resource governance, we show how multiple and shifting categories of differences are constituted in two encounters between Purati and those implementing the project. We highlight how aspects of difference and their intersections, constituted, and enacted in time and place, shape experiences of intersectionality in participatory development, and how navigating and variously responding to these can reassert and rearticulate intersectional categories and relations. This nuanced analysis of intersectionality also provides an in-depth understanding of how the workings of difference and power shape participatory engagement, goals, and outcomes, and is key for debates and implementation regarding participatory development.
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Never having travelled to New Zealand (commonly called Aotearoa in Māori language), these islands in the southwestern Pacific have an outsized imprint on my understanding of current water governance debates. This is all the more so given... more
Never having travelled to New Zealand (commonly called Aotearoa in Māori language), these islands in the southwestern Pacific have an outsized imprint on my understanding of current water governance debates. This is all the more so given current challenges, whether it be decolonizing and Indigenizing water governance, how to work at the complex intersections of multiple water laws and plural water imaginaries, or how to work more meaningfully at the interface between bottom-up and regulatory or management approaches. This volume, offering rich empirical analysis of various water governance challenges in Aotearoa again offers an outsized contribution to diverse fields of knowledge and ongoing debates. The contributors offer in-depth analysis of the empirical cases in the specific historical and geographical context of Aotearoa, but also do so in ways that do not shy away from the ‘big questions.’
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Compounding systems of marginalization differentiate and shape water-related risks. Yet, quantitative water security scholarship rarely assesses such risks through intersectionality, a paradigm that conceptualizes and examines racial,... more
Compounding systems of marginalization differentiate and shape water-related risks. Yet, quantitative water security scholarship rarely assesses such risks through intersectionality, a paradigm that conceptualizes and examines racial, gendered, class, and other oppressions as interdependent. Using an intersectionality approach, we analyze the relationships between household head gender and self-reported socio-economic status, and water affordability (proportion of monthly income spent on water) and water insecurity (a composite measure of 11 self-reported experiences) for over 4000 households across 18 low- and middle-income countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. Interaction terms and composite categorical variables were included in regression models, adjusting for putative confounders. Among households with a high socio-economic status, the proportion of monthly income spent on water differed by household head gender. In contrast, greater household water insecurity was associated with lower socio-economic status and did not meaningfully vary by the gender of the household head. We contextualize and interpret these experiences through larger systems of power and privilege. Overall, our results provide evidence of broad intersectional patterns from diverse sites, while indicating that their nature and magnitude depend on local contexts. Through a critical reflection on the study’s value and limitations, including the operationalization of social contexts across different sites, we propose methodological approaches to advance multi-sited and quantitative intersectional research on water affordability and water insecurity. These approaches include developing scale-appropriate models, analyzing complementarities and differences between site-specific and multi-sited data, collecting data on gendered power relations, and measuring the impacts of household water insecurity. open access: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26349825231156900
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Nesbitt, L., Sax, D.L., Quinton, J., Harris, L.M., Ordóñez Barona, C., Konijnendijk, C. (2023). Greening practitioners worry about green gentrification but many don’t address it in their work. Ecology and Society, 28(4). DOI:... more
Nesbitt, L., Sax, D.L., Quinton, J., Harris, L.M., Ordóñez Barona, C., Konijnendijk, C. (2023). Greening practitioners worry about green gentrification but many don’t address it in their work. Ecology and Society, 28(4). DOI: 10.5751/ES-14579-280429
Available open access here: https://ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss4/art29/
As cities attempt to ameliorate urban green inequities, a potential challenge has emerged in the form of green gentrification. Although practitioners are central to urban greening and associated gentrification, there has yet to be an exploration of practitioner perspectives on the phenomenon. We fill this gap with an online survey of 51 urban greening practitioners in Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area. Most respondents defined green gentrification as the displacement of vulnerable residents due to the installation or improvement of green space that attracts wealthy in-movers and increases property values. They were most likely to identify greening as driving green gentrification, with a minority identifying other systemic drivers with greening in a secondary role. Although 39 of 51 participants had some familiarity with green gentrification, most reported low confidence in their understanding of the concept, little evidence of using the concept in their work, and moderate concern that their work is implicated in green gentrification. The gentrification issues most encountered by practitioners were changes to neighbourhood character and uneven investment in public infrastructure, and those working in domains linked to planning, equity, and engagement were most likely to encounter gentrification issues. Practitioners experienced multiple barriers to addressing green gentrification, including limited institutional capacity, limited access to data and relevant information, policy/mandate restriction, and lack of engagement tools. Results indicate that practitioners have a moderate understanding of green gentrification but do not often use the concept in their work, despite their potential to contribute to or exacerbate it. This suggests some resistance to critiques of urban greening practice, a failure of scholarly critiques of urban greening to influence policy change, and the need for stronger research theory and research co-creation involving practitioners and academia.
Available open access here: https://ecologyandsociety.org/vol28/iss4/art29/
As cities attempt to ameliorate urban green inequities, a potential challenge has emerged in the form of green gentrification. Although practitioners are central to urban greening and associated gentrification, there has yet to be an exploration of practitioner perspectives on the phenomenon. We fill this gap with an online survey of 51 urban greening practitioners in Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area. Most respondents defined green gentrification as the displacement of vulnerable residents due to the installation or improvement of green space that attracts wealthy in-movers and increases property values. They were most likely to identify greening as driving green gentrification, with a minority identifying other systemic drivers with greening in a secondary role. Although 39 of 51 participants had some familiarity with green gentrification, most reported low confidence in their understanding of the concept, little evidence of using the concept in their work, and moderate concern that their work is implicated in green gentrification. The gentrification issues most encountered by practitioners were changes to neighbourhood character and uneven investment in public infrastructure, and those working in domains linked to planning, equity, and engagement were most likely to encounter gentrification issues. Practitioners experienced multiple barriers to addressing green gentrification, including limited institutional capacity, limited access to data and relevant information, policy/mandate restriction, and lack of engagement tools. Results indicate that practitioners have a moderate understanding of green gentrification but do not often use the concept in their work, despite their potential to contribute to or exacerbate it. This suggests some resistance to critiques of urban greening practice, a failure of scholarly critiques of urban greening to influence policy change, and the need for stronger research theory and research co-creation involving practitioners and academia.
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Work on narrative, story, and storytelling has been on the rise across the humanities and social sciences. Building on significant work on these themes from Indigenous, Black, and Feminist scholarship, and other varied traditions, this... more
Work on narrative, story, and storytelling has been on the rise across the humanities and social sciences. Building on significant work on these themes from Indigenous, Black, and Feminist scholarship, and other varied traditions, this piece explores and elaborates the potential regarding the elicitation, sharing, and analysis of stories for nature-society studies. Specifically, the piece examines core contributions along these lines to date, as well as the methodological, analytical, political, and transformative potential of story and storytelling to enrich, broaden, and deepen work in nature-society, political ecology, and environmental justice. All told, focus on story and storytelling, offers a number of relevant and rich openings to understand and engage complex, unequal, and dynamic socio-natures. While these elements have been present in nature-society work from some traditions and lines of inquiry, the time is ripe to broaden and deepen these engagements to more fully imagine, and respond to, key nature-society challenges. Free open access available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211010677
Research Interests: Social Research Methods and Methodology, Narrative, Political Ecology, Qualitative methodology, Narrative and interpretation, and 9 moreStorytelling, Qualitative Research, Narrative and Identity, Narrative Analysis, Narrative Theory, Qualitative Research Methods, Political Ecology (Anthropology), Story, and Personal Narratives
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Research Interests: Sociology, Environmental Science, Anthropology, Action Research, Commons, and 15 morePolitical Ecology, Social Movement, Politics, Rural Development, Indigenous Knowledge, Environmental Justice, Environmental Sustainability, River Ecology, Activist Ethnography, River Basin Management, River Restoration, Bureaucracy, Water governance, Territory, and Historical Studies
Assumptions of trust in water systems are widespread in higher-income countries, often linked to expectations of “modern water.” The current literature on water and trust also tends to reinforce a technoscientific approach, emphasizing... more
Assumptions of trust in water systems are widespread in higher-income countries, often linked to expectations of “modern water.” The current literature on water and trust also tends to reinforce a technoscientific approach, emphasizing the importance of aligning water user perceptions with expert assessments. Although such approaches can be useful to document instances of distrust, they often fail to explain why patterns differ over time, and across contexts and populations. Addressing these shortcomings, we offer a relational approach focused on the trustworthiness of hydro-social systems to contextualize water-trust dynamics in relation to broader practices and contexts. In doing so, we investigate three high-profile water crises in North America where examples of distrust are prevalent: Flint, Michigan; Kashechewan First Nation; and the Navajo Nation. Through our theoretical and empirical examination, we offer insights on these dynamics and find that distrust may at times be a wa...
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Abstract The construction of desalination plants is proliferating worldwide. In Chile, seawater purification technologies are framed as a tool for confronting water scarcity, stabilizing water provision and optimizing overall water... more
Abstract The construction of desalination plants is proliferating worldwide. In Chile, seawater purification technologies are framed as a tool for confronting water scarcity, stabilizing water provision and optimizing overall water availability while minimizing impacts on groundwater resources. Yet, local communities hosting desalination facilities in their territories are still confronting ongoing water-related inequities. The aim of this paper is to analyse how Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Declarations of Environmental Impact (DIAs) fit with the assessment and mitigation of socio-environmental implications of desalination. While they are intended to highlight and minimize negative impacts, and address them as part of the approval process prior to the construction of these facilities, we see instead how they are at times marshalled in ways that enable negative socio-environmental outcomes. Thorough analysis of EIAs (1994–2018) and DIAs (2010–2018) of mining companies in the Atacama region our research revealed shortcomings concerning public participation, mitigation and compensation plans, and water-energy management. This occurs, in part, through the depoliticization (or rendering technical) of desalination, in ways that obscure uneven and negative socio-environmental outcomes.
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At least half of Accra's residents do not enjoy safe, secure, and affordable access to water on a regular basis. Focused on underserved communities in and around urban Accra, this essay highlights the meanings and importance of water... more
At least half of Accra's residents do not enjoy safe, secure, and affordable access to water on a regular basis. Focused on underserved communities in and around urban Accra, this essay highlights the meanings and importance of water insecurity for residents' daily lives. In particular, this essay extends beyond the well-established ways that the lack of safe and affordable access conditions poor public health outcomes, to a broader understanding of well-being informed by residents' own experiences of irregular and insecure access to water. This essay thus seeks to broaden understandings of water insecurity beyond the basic and minimum access required for daily needs, and to consider broader social-contextual dynamics, such as reported experiences of stress or conflict, that residents face daily in negotiating water insecurities.1
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In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a set of public guidelines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention measures that highlighted handwashing, physical distancing, and household cleaning. These health... more
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a set of public guidelines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention measures that highlighted handwashing, physical distancing, and household cleaning. These health behaviors are severely compromised in parts of the world that lack secure water supplies, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We used empirical data gathered in 2017-2018 from 8,297 households in 29 sites across 23 LMICs to address the potential implications of water insecurity for COVID-19 prevention and response. These data demonstrate how household water insecurity presents many pathways for limiting personal and environmental hygiene and impeding physical distancing, exacerbating existing social and health vulnerabilities that can lead to more severe COVID-19 outcomes. In the four weeks prior to the survey, 45.9% of households in our sample either were unable to wash their hands or reported borrowing water from others, which may undermine hygiene and physical distancing. Further, 70.9% of households experienced one or more water-related problems that potentially undermine COVID-19 control strategies or disease treatment, including insufficient water for bathing, laundering, or taking medication; drinking unsafe water; going to sleep thirsty; or having little-to-no drinking water. These findings help identify where water provision is most relevant to managing COVID-19 spread and outcomes.
Research Interests: Business, Water resources, Environmental Health, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Public Health, and 11 moreMedicine, Water Supply, Water governance, Social distance, Bathing, Hygiene, Public health systems and services research, Personal protective equipment, Water Insecurity, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
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This Special Issue on water governance features a series of articles that highlight recent and emerging concepts, approaches, and case studies to re-center and re-theorize “the political” in relation to decision-making, use, and... more
This Special Issue on water governance features a series of articles that highlight recent and emerging concepts, approaches, and case studies to re-center and re-theorize “the political” in relation to decision-making, use, and management—collectively, the governance of water. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance. Further reflected is a focus on diverse ontologies, epistemologies, meanings and values of water, related contestations concerning its use, and water’s importance for livelihoods, identity, and place-making. Taken together, the articles in this Special Issue challenge the ways that water governance remains too often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning. By re-centering the political, an...
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Water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households with water and to one another. Water sharing can take many forms, including so‐called “pure gifts,” balanced exchanges, and... more
Water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households with water and to one another. Water sharing can take many forms, including so‐called “pure gifts,” balanced exchanges, and negative reciprocity. In this study, we examine water sharing between households as a culturally embedded practice that may be both need‐based and symbolically meaningful. Drawing on a wide‐ranging review of diverse literatures, we describe how households practice water sharing cross‐culturally in the context of four livelihood strategies (hunter‐gatherer, pastoralist, agricultural, and urban). We then explore how cross‐cutting material conditions (risks and costs/benefits, infrastructure and technologies), socioeconomic processes (social and political power, water entitlements, ethnicity and gender, territorial sovereignty), and cultural norms (moral economies of water, water ontologies, and religious beliefs) shape water sharing practices. Finally, we ...
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Water insecurity massively undermines health, especially among impoverished and marginalized communities. Emerging evidence shows that household-to-household water sharing is a widespread coping strategy in vulnerable communities. Sharing... more
Water insecurity massively undermines health, especially among impoverished and marginalized communities. Emerging evidence shows that household-to-household water sharing is a widespread coping strategy in vulnerable communities. Sharing can buffer households from the deleterious health effects that typically accompany seasonal shortages, interruptions of water services and natural disasters. Conversely, sharing may also increase exposure to pathogens and become burdensome and distressing in times of heightened need. These water sharing systems have been almost invisible within global health research but need to be explored, because they can both support and undermine global public health interventions, planning and policy.
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In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a set of public guidelines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention measures that highlighted handwashing, physical distancing, and household cleaning. These health... more
In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a set of public guidelines for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevention measures that highlighted handwashing, physical distancing, and household
cleaning. These health behaviors are severely compromised in parts of the world that lack secure water supplies, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We used empirical data gathered in 2017–2018 from
8,297 households in 29 sites across 23 LMICs to address the potential implications of water insecurity for COVID-19 prevention and response. These data demonstrate how household water insecurity presents many pathways for limiting personal and environmental hygiene, impeding physical distancing and exacerbating existing social and health vulnerabilities that can lead to more severe COVID-19 outcomes. In the four weeks prior to survey implementation, 45.9% of households in our sample either were unable to wash their hands or reported borrowing water from others, which may undermine hygiene and physical distancing. Further, 70.9% of
households experienced one or more water-related problems that potentially undermine COVID-19 control strategies or disease treatment, including insufficient water for bathing, laundering, or taking medication;
drinking unsafe water; going to sleep thirsty; or having little-to-no drinking water. These findings help identify where water provision is most relevant to managing COVID-19 spread and outcomes.
Justin Stoler a,*, Joshua D. Miller b, Alexandra Brewis c, Matthew C. Freeman d, Leila M. Harris e,
Wendy Jepson f, Amber L. Pearson g, Asher Y. Rosinger h, Sameer H. Shah e, Chad Staddon i,
Cassandra Workman j, Amber Wutich c, Sera L. Young k, Household Water Insecurity Experiences
Research Coordination Network (HWISE RCN)
cleaning. These health behaviors are severely compromised in parts of the world that lack secure water supplies, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We used empirical data gathered in 2017–2018 from
8,297 households in 29 sites across 23 LMICs to address the potential implications of water insecurity for COVID-19 prevention and response. These data demonstrate how household water insecurity presents many pathways for limiting personal and environmental hygiene, impeding physical distancing and exacerbating existing social and health vulnerabilities that can lead to more severe COVID-19 outcomes. In the four weeks prior to survey implementation, 45.9% of households in our sample either were unable to wash their hands or reported borrowing water from others, which may undermine hygiene and physical distancing. Further, 70.9% of
households experienced one or more water-related problems that potentially undermine COVID-19 control strategies or disease treatment, including insufficient water for bathing, laundering, or taking medication;
drinking unsafe water; going to sleep thirsty; or having little-to-no drinking water. These findings help identify where water provision is most relevant to managing COVID-19 spread and outcomes.
Justin Stoler a,*, Joshua D. Miller b, Alexandra Brewis c, Matthew C. Freeman d, Leila M. Harris e,
Wendy Jepson f, Amber L. Pearson g, Asher Y. Rosinger h, Sameer H. Shah e, Chad Staddon i,
Cassandra Workman j, Amber Wutich c, Sera L. Young k, Household Water Insecurity Experiences
Research Coordination Network (HWISE RCN)
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Welcome to this special issue on Critical Cartographies and GIScience. The call for papers for this issue emphasized three major themes. First, we encouraged authors to focus on socio-political relations inscribed in mapping products and... more
Welcome to this special issue on Critical Cartographies and GIScience. The call for papers for this issue emphasized three major themes. First, we encouraged authors to focus on socio-political relations inscribed in mapping products and practice, including exploration of the potential for increased democratization of mapping technologies. Second, given the rapidity and intensity of technological innovation and change in the last few years, we were interested in papers that considered the particularities of this current moment with respect to cartographic and digital technology and diffusion, including how these changes force
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Research Interests: Business, Water, International Development, Corporate Governance, Governance, and 15 moreEnergy, Citizen Journalism, Corporate Sustainability, Ghana, Democracy, Integrated Water Resources Management, Civil Society, Corruption, Greenhouse Effect, Institutional Sustainability, Sustainability in construction industry, Water governance and management in Central Asia, Social Aspects of Sustainability, Governance Reforms, and Public Policy
This article engages a critical feminist analysis of a community-based participatory video (PV) process focused on water and sanitation issues in underserved settlements of Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. With focus on emotions... more
This article engages a critical feminist analysis of a community-based participatory video (PV) process focused on water and sanitation issues in underserved settlements of Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa. With focus on emotions and empathy, we highlight these concepts in relation to participant narratives and shifting subjectivities. In so doing, we consider how arts based engagement (in this case, through participatory video), might serve to foster new ways of relating to water resources and water infrastructures. The analysis highlights how the participants themselves reflect on PV as a vehicle for personal transformation, knowledge co-creation and a 'watered' subjectivity. We find that the PV process helps to uncover and identify knowledge gaps on water governance by enabling individuals and communities--often unheard—to participate in civic and political debates around resource governance. While many positive elements were emphasized, we also suggest that there...
Resilience thinking has been roundly critiqued for not accounting for the political – and inherently power-laden – structures that shape decision-making. In light of the range of critiques as well as the increasing global momentum around... more
Resilience thinking has been roundly critiqued for not accounting for the political – and inherently power-laden – structures that shape decision-making. In light of the range of critiques as well as the increasing global momentum around resilience thinking, this paper develops the concept of 'Negotiated Resilience.' The concept highlights processes of negotiation to situate, ground, and operationalize 'resilience.' The concept puts particular accent on the procedural orientation of resilience – it is not something that 'exists' and that we can uniformly define, rather it is a process that requires engagement with diverse actors and interests, both in specific places and across scales. Negotiation also inevitably entails contestation and an ongoing consideration of diverse options and trade-offs. We suggest that when considering the inherent complexities of resilience, we would do better to explicitly theorize, analyze, and speak to these negotiations.
Resilience is becoming a core concept in water governance. It refers to the ability of communities, cities or regions to withstand the challenges posed by an increased intensity and frequency of floods and droughts.
This paper advances recent conversations related to the need to better engage postcolonial scholarship in development geography. To do so, I bring together analytics offered by postdevelopmental, feminist geographic, and postcolonial... more
This paper advances recent conversations related to the need to better engage postcolonial scholarship in development geography. To do so, I bring together analytics offered by postdevelopmental, feminist geographic, and postcolonial scholarship to analyze contemporary development efforts in Southeastern Turkey. To provide necessary background for the case study context, the paper considers three key moments foundational for Turkish modernist development aspirations: the foundations of the Republic through Kemalism, the emergence of Kurdish separatism and PKK resistance, and Turkish efforts to gain entry to the EU. Reading these moments, and their culmination in contemporary development efforts focused on the southeastern Anatolia region, through postdevelopmental and feminist geographic literatures invites a reading that highlights socio-spatial difference as underwriting modernist development interventions in the Southeastern Anatolia region. Drawing on postcolonial scholarship, p...
This paper considers what is at stake in defining and mapping protected areas for conservation. We link issues of power in cartography to themes from political ecology, social natures, and conservation biology literatures to extend our... more
This paper considers what is at stake in defining and mapping protected areas for conservation. We link issues of power in cartography to themes from political ecology, social natures, and conservation biology literatures to extend our understanding of maps as reflective of, and productive of, power. Reviewing insights from these literatures to consider power asymmetries common to conservation practice, we highlight ways that mapping practices and products reinforce and contribute to such dynamics. Doing so enriches consideration of the power geometries of conservation cartographies by inviting fuller consideration of diverse species and landscapes, as well as enabling discussion of other representational and productive effects of conservation mappings. Once determined, how might conservation maps serve to naturalize certain spaces or boundaries as fixed, or contribute to certain socio-psychological understandings of conservation possibilities or outcomes? In the closing sections, w...
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South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy... more
South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy brief provides background on the history and institutions of importance for water governance, and also identifies key legislation enacted since 1994. The report includes a diagram of different levels of water authorities and mandates, offering an 'institutional map' of the urban water sector of Cape Town (dated 2015).
Research Interests: Southern Africa, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Sustainable Participatory Water Management And Good Governance, Water Policy, South Africa, and 7 moreWater Resources Management and Policy, Water governance, Urban Water Policy, Human Right to Water, Water and Society Water Governance Water Resource Infrastructure and Climate Water Environnement Policy and Water Management, Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, and The Human Right to Water
This paper describes and critically examines the process and outcomes of a community-based participatory video (PV) research project on issues related to water governance with residents of underserved and informal settlements in... more
This paper describes and critically examines the process and outcomes of a community-based participatory video (PV) research project on issues related to water governance with residents of underserved and informal settlements in Khayelitsha, South Africa and Accra, Ghana. Co-produced videos were used to facilitate communication and to open a dialogue between the participating communities and their respective local governments, with the aims of improving awareness of the issues, enhancing agency and enabling participation in the political and social debates about water governance. Analysing the approach, our research draws on two key principles of participatory governance – recognition and response – to evaluate the application of PV as a potential engagement tool for participatory water governance. We critically discuss the reality and tensions of PV in shifting deep-rooted inequities of power in decision making through two case studies, both of which involved residents and represen...
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Research Interests: Indigenous Studies, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Environmental Studies, Political Science, Indigenous Politics, and 15 moreStakeholders, Aboriginal history in Canada, Indigenous Peoples Rights, Environmental Sustainability, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous ecological knowledges and practices, Integrated Water Resources Management, British Columbia and the Canadian West, First Nations of Canada, First Nations Law, Canada, First Nations, British Columbia, History of Colonization of indigeous peoples, and FIrst Nations Studies
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy... more
South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy brief provides background on the history and institutions of importance for water governance, and also identifies key legislation enacted since 1994. The report includes a diagram of different levels of water authorities and mandates, offering an 'institutional map' of the urban water sector of Cape Town (dated 2015). Water supply and distribution schemes in South Africa were historically created to serve predominantly white populations during colonial and apartheid eras. Capital investments in pipes, dams and other water-related infrastructure were differentially affected during apartheid in different areas, with homelands, townships and informal settlements receiving much less funding and generally lower quality of water services (Goldin 2010). This resulted in highly differentiated access to water services in South Africa, by race and income, as well as a highly fragmented water management system (Herrfahrdt-Pähle 2010) as well as undemocratic participatory engagement—challenges that all persist today. One historical legacy exacerbating this institutional fragmentation was the shift from 6 municipalities into one Unicity of Cape Town in 2000, which created further challenges for equitable and unified service delivery (Smith & Hanson 2003). With the adoption of the first democratic constitution of South Africa (1996), vast political reforms were undertaken, affecting all dimensions of governance across the country. The new democratic government and constitution established national institutional mandates for the provision and governance of water resources, as well as water services (Republic of South Africa (RSA) 1996). In terms of water services, the South African constitution (1996) includes the guarantee for water (and sanitation), stating that " everyone has the right to access sufficient food and water " (Section
Research Interests:
South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy... more
South Africa has a complex water governance landscape, both with considerable successes, and ongoing challenges, in achieving sustainable, adequate and equitable water access and governance. With a specific focus on Cape Town, this policy brief provides background on the history and institutions of importance for water governance, and also identifies key legislation enacted since 1994. The report includes a diagram of different levels of water authorities and mandates, offering an 'institutional map' of the urban water sector of Cape Town (dated 2015).
Research Interests: Southern Africa, Sustainable Water Resources Management, Sustainable Participatory Water Management And Good Governance, Water Policy, South Africa, and 7 moreWater Resources Management and Policy, Water governance, Urban Water Policy, Human Right to Water, Water and Society Water Governance Water Resource Infrastructure and Climate Water Environnement Policy and Water Management, Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, and The Human Right to Water
An overview of key policies and institutions relevant for Ghana's water sector. Comments and updates welcome.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Policy Brief summarizing several publications on participatory urban water governance in Accra, Ghana
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The International WaTERS Network (www.international-waters.org), with support of the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies (http://pwias.ubc.ca/), the NEPAD Centers for Excellence... more
The International WaTERS Network (www.international-waters.org), with support of the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies (http://pwias.ubc.ca/), the NEPAD Centers for Excellence (http://www.nepad.org/programme/nepad-water-centres-excellence), the Water Research Commission of South Africa, and other partners (see end of report for full list) were proud to host an international workshop on equity and water-related resilience in southern Africa. We successfully collaborated and shared insights from researchers and practitioners focusing on, and based in, southern Africa. Additionally, this workshop focused on goal setting, research dissemination and grant writing for the future of the International WaTERS Network research program.
Thematically, the workshop critically interrogated notions of resilience, highlighted definitions and framings from different disciplinary traditions, and integrated insights from scholars and practitioners with focus on southern Africa. Considerable attention during the first two days was given to case study work in the region.. The third day was made up of small group and plenary discussions of collaborative publications and grant applications to extend this work, looking ahead to future needs and collaborative possibilities.
Please see our website for the detailed workshop agenda, as well as a full participant list and contact information: http://www.waterequity.pwias.ubc.ca/
Thematically, the workshop critically interrogated notions of resilience, highlighted definitions and framings from different disciplinary traditions, and integrated insights from scholars and practitioners with focus on southern Africa. Considerable attention during the first two days was given to case study work in the region.. The third day was made up of small group and plenary discussions of collaborative publications and grant applications to extend this work, looking ahead to future needs and collaborative possibilities.
Please see our website for the detailed workshop agenda, as well as a full participant list and contact information: http://www.waterequity.pwias.ubc.ca/
Research Interests:
This policy brief was developed as part of the Applied Metagenomics of the Watershed Microbiome project (www.watersheddiscovery.ca). Here, we outline some of the major findings related to the project from a GE3LS perspective (Genomics and... more
This policy brief was developed as part of the Applied Metagenomics of the Watershed Microbiome project (www.watersheddiscovery.ca). Here, we outline some of the major findings related to the project from a GE3LS perspective (Genomics and its Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social Aspects), highlighting several key insights and references that may be of interest to policymakers and stakeholder communities.
Pesticide-related health impacts in Ecuador's banana industry illustrate the need to understand science's social production in the context of major North-South inequities. This paper explores colonialism's ongoing context-specific... more
Pesticide-related health impacts in Ecuador's banana industry illustrate the need to understand science's social production in the context of major North-South inequities. This paper explores colonialism's ongoing context-specific relationships to science, and what these imply for population health inquiry and praxis. Themes in postcolonial science and technology studies and critical Latin American scholarship guide this exploration, oriented around an ethnographic case study of bananas, pesticides and health in Ecuador. The challenge of explaining these impacts prompts us to explore discursive and contextual dynamics of pesticide toxicology and phytopathology, two disciplines integral to understanding pesticide-health linkages. The evolution of banana phytopathology reflects patterns of banana production and plant science in settings made accessible to scientists by European colonialism and American military interventions. Similarly, American foreign policy in Cold War-era Latin America created conditions for widespread pesticide exposures and accompanying health science research. Neocolonial representations of the global South interacted with these material realities in fostering generation of scientific knowledge. Implications for health praxis include troubling celebratory portrayals of global interconnectedness in the field of global health, motivating critical political economy and radical community based approaches in their place. Another implication is a challenge to conciliatory corporate engagement approaches in health research, given banana production's symbiosis of scientifically 'productive' military and corporate initiatives. Similarly, the origins and evolution of toxicology should promote humility and precautionary approaches in addressing environmental injustices such as pesticide toxicity, given the role of corporate actors in promoting systematic underestimation of risk to vulnerable populations. Perhaps most unsettlingly, the very structures and processes that drive health inequities in Ecuador's banana industry simultaneously shape production of knowledge about those inequities. Public health scholars should thus move beyond simply carrying out more, or better, studies, and pursue the structural changes needed to redress historical and ongoing injustices. 1. Main text In this paper, we explore the social production of science related to pesticide exposures in banana production on the Ecuadorian coast (la costa), and develop related implications for population health research and praxis. This exploration is motivated by our experiences carrying out research with banana farmers and workers over the past decade, in the face of colonialism's legacies, corporate power and the challenge of mobilizing multiple knowledge systems for environmental health equity. To trace such dynamics, we focus on the contextually-specific Latin American expressions of two sciences, pesticide toxicology and banana phytopathology (phytopathology is the study of plant disease). These two sciences emerged as crucial (albeit problematic) resources in a broader remit of scientific approaches deployed to understand pesticide toxicity in Ecuadorian banana production.