Abstract
This article describes challenges faced by a team of interns and students working for a not-for-profit sister company of a private U.S.-based land development company planning to build a "sustainable city" in the Panamanian forest. Testing the contaminated water of a nearby village, the team demonstrated that residents have been living with water-related illness. Despite the indifference and conflicting aims of the parent company, potentially impactful social capital connections were made. The author reflects on these efforts within the critique of student "voluntourism." He also explores the role of social media in the production of narratives of sustainable development within the context of a poorly regulated land market.Keywords: water access and water-related illness; sustainable development; medical anthropology; public health; tourism; voluntourism; social capital; social media narratives
Highlights
This article describes challenges faced by a team of interns and students working for a not-for-profit sister company of a private U.S.-based land development company planning to build a "sustainable city" in the Panamanian forest
The project described in this article contributes to this political ecology of health risk and water access literature by identifying the mutually-reinforcing factors of contaminated water, poor health, and state inattention to public health in marginalized isolated areas where foreign private development is being encouraged
Tierra Sostenible was a private development company looking to find a profitable niche in the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) global marketplace
Summary
A Panamanian eco-playground set in a rainforest valley where entrepreneurs and tropical cowboys are busy building the ultimate sustainable lifestyle. The research team aimed to shed light on serious public health issues related to contaminated drinking water in a community situated in the shadows of the commercial company's speculative plans While these plans were promoted under presumed principles of sustainable development, they included a proposal that would clear-cut at least 500 hectares of forest to accommodate new homes for 5,000-10,000 people. The project described in this article contributes to this political ecology of health risk and water access literature by identifying the mutually-reinforcing factors of contaminated water, poor health, and state inattention to public health in marginalized isolated areas where foreign private development is being encouraged It strives to recognize how the embodied experience of living with water-related illness can be framed as a public discourse critiquing inequality in Panama, and how it can bring accountability. The project sought to establish bonds of social capital among different networks in order to circumvent the system of power that has allowed this form of social suffering to persist
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