Water journeys: Household water insecurity, health risks, and embodiment in slums and informal settlements

Abstract

Water insecurity is a critical public-health challenge in Africa's urban informal settlements, where most of the population often lacks access to household taps. In these settings, water fetching is disproportionately performed by women. While water fetching is physically laborious and exposes women to multiple risks, the water-insecurity literature has predominantly focused on household experiences, ignoring women's water-collection journeys. This paper uses the water journey as a window into the embodied dimensions of water insecurity. Combining theoretical insights from embodiment, embodied political ecology of health, and time geographies, we use video-recorded walking interviews to analyze women's everyday water journeys in Ntopwa, an urban informal settlement in Blantyre, Malawi, from initial decision making through exposure to water-fetching risks and household practices regarding use and storage. We identify three principal sources of environmental risk— terrain, built environment, and human behavior—that present challenges for water collectors. Using the walking interview as a heuristic, we show how the seemingly simple practice of water fetching is compounded by complex decision making, constant spatiotemporal trade-offs, and exposure to diverse risks, all of which have embodied health consequences. Based on our findings, we conclude that interventions seeking to improve household water insecurity must consider the embodied effects of water-fetching journeys. This study also provides methodological insights into using walking interviews and videos for water and health research.