skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Gender identities, water insecurity, and risk: Re‐theorizing the connections for a gender‐inclusive toolkit for water insecurity research
Title: Gender identities, water insecurity, and risk: Re‐theorizing the connections for a gender‐inclusive toolkit for water insecurity research
Abstract Informed by decades of literature, water interventions increasingly deploy “gender‐sensitive” or even “gender transformative” approaches that seek to redress the disproportionate harms women face from water insecurity. These efforts recognize the role of gendered social norms and unequal power relations but often focus narrowly on the differences and dynamics between cisgender (cis) men and women. This approach renders less visible the ways that living with water insecurity can differentially affect all individuals through the dynamics of gender, sexuality, and linked intersecting identities. Here, we first share a conceptual toolkit that explains gender as fluid, negotiated, and diverse beyond the cis‐binary. Using this as a starting point, we then review what is known and can be theorized from current literature, identifying limited observations from water‐insecure communities to identify examples of contexts where gendered mechanisms (such as social norms) differentiate experiences of water insecurity, such as elevating risks of social stigma, physical harm, or psychological distress. We then apply this approach to consider expanded ways to include transgender, non‐binary, and gender and sexual diversity to deepen, nuance and expand key thematics and approaches for water insecurity research. Reconceptualizing gender in these ways widens theoretical possibilities, changes how we collect data, and imagines new possibilities for effective and just water interventions. This article is categorized under:Human Water > Value of WaterEngineering Water > Water, Health, and SanitationHuman Water > Water as Imagined and RepresentedHuman Water > Methods  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1759972
PAR ID:
10552190
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley
Date Published:
Journal Name:
WIREs Water
Volume:
11
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2049-1948
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Human Organization)
    null (Ed.)
    Recently developed scales aim to advance understanding of household water insecurity and inform interventions to address this critical global problem. The relative severity of items included in household water insecurity scales has been established as an inverse of the proportion of the population that reports experiencing the item. Here, we assess subjective perceptions of scale item severity among people who experience household water insecurity. In 2017, we surveyed 259 women in Amhara, Ethiopia, assessing both experiences of water insecurity and perceptions of item severity using a pictorial scale. The mean subjective severity of most items was at the high end of our pictorial scale. Subjective severity of items was not associated with whether or not a participant experienced the item in the last thirty days, with a participant’s summary household water insecurity score, or with rural versus peri-urban residence, but was consistently associated with community of residence. Item severity as defined by the proportion of the population experiencing the item aligned with average perceptions of item severity, with one exception: drinking water that might not be safe. We discuss these findings’ implications for water insecurity measurement, evaluation of interventions, and studies of the relationship between water insecurity and psychological distress. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Environment and Planning F)
    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. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; (, International journal of gender studies)
    In this paper, we address the growing visibility of people who reject gender categories and identify as neither women nor men. We begin with a brief overview of how we conceptualize gender as a social structure. We use this theoretical framework to theorize how the increased visibility of people who reject the gender binary influence how we understand the gender structure, social change, and social justice. While we offer no empirical analysis in this article, we do draw upon interviews with 120 non-binary people in three metropolitan areas in the United States and interviews that are in process in Italy and Spain. We discuss the possibility that those who reject gender categories may increase freedom from gendered expectations for everyone, but also the possibility of backlash to increased visibility of gender non-conformity. We conclude the paper with an argument that the future of feminism as a social movement should be aimed at liberation from gender itself. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Public Health Nutrition)
    Abstract Objective: Water plays a critical role in the production of food and preparation of nutritious meals, yet few studies have examined the relationship between water and food insecurity. The primary objective of this study, therefore, was to examine how experiences of household water insecurity (HWI) relate to experiences of household food insecurity (HFI) among a pastoralist population living in an arid, water-stressed region of northern Kenya. Design: We implemented the twelve-item Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE, range 0–36) Scale and the nine-item Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS, range 0–27) in a cross-sectional survey to measure HWI and HFI, respectively. Data on socio-demographic characteristics and intake of meat and dairy in the prior week were collected as covariates of interest. Setting: Northern Kenya, June–July 2019. Participants: Daasanach pastoralist households ( n 136) from seven communities. Results: In the prior 4 weeks, 93·4 % and 98·5 % of households had experienced moderate-to-severe HWI and HFI, respectively. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated a strong association between HWI and HFI. Each point higher HWISE score was associated with a 0·44-point (95 % CI: 0·22, 0·66, P = 0·003) higher HFIAS score adjusting for socio-economic status and other covariates. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate high prevalence and co-occurrence of HWI and HFI among Daasanach pastoralists in northern Kenya. This study highlights the need to address HWI and HFI simultaneously when developing policies and interventions to improve the nutritional well-being of populations whose subsistence is closely tied to water availability and access. 
    more » « less
  5. (, WIREs Water)
    Advances in hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) technologies and horizontal drilling have enabled the extraction of previously unviable unconventional oil and gas resources. However, as global environmental concerns have become more prominent and unconventional oil and gas developments have moved ever closer to residential centers, public scrutiny of the industry and its methods and impacts of extraction have increased. Water impacts feature prominently among the contemporary societal concerns about fracking. These concerns include the large water requirements of the process itself, as well as concerns about the potential pollution of groundwater and the (underground) environment more broadly. Anthropologists have undertaken qualitative field research on unconventional gas developments in a variety of settings, largely among local communities in regions of extraction. The perspectives employed by anthropologists are commonly drawn from the broader social science literature, including the anthropology of water and natural resources, science and technology studies, studies of social movements, and studies which examine the energy‐society nexus. Based on the shortcomings of the published anthropological accounts, interdisciplinary research collaboration with hydrologists, engineers and economists, as well as a more fulsome engagement with the variety of hopes, fears and dreams of fracking and unconventional gas, is recommended.WIREs Water2018, 5:e1272. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1272 This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of WaterScience of Water > Water QualityHuman Water > Methods 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Text Encoded Conversion
  • XML
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email