This book examines water security as a prime example of how the economic, socio-cultural and political-normative systems that regulate access to water reflect the evolving and gendered power relations between different societal groups. Access to water is characterized by inequalities: it depends not only on natural water availability, but also on the respective socio-political context. It is regulated by gender-differentiated roles and responsibilities towards the resource, which are strongly influenced by, among others, tradition, religion, customary law, geographical availability, as well as the historical and socio-political context.
While gender has been recognized as a key intervening variable in achieving equitable water access, most studies fail to acknowledge the deep interrelations between social structures and patterns of water use. Proof of these shortcomings is the enduring lack of data on water accessibility, availability and utilization that sufficiently acknowledgesthe relational nature of gender and other categories of power and difference, like class and socioeconomic status, as well as their comprehensive analysis. This book addresses this major research gap.
This is the first book-length text to offer a gender-differentiated analysis of water security that also shows the complex and multidimensional factors underpinning water security and gender, including geophysical, environmental, economic and a variety of socio-political processes
Explores the gender-water nexus through a range of different lenses, including institutional, theoretical, practical and regional perspectives
Uses new and original data and goes far beyond political ecology to explore the fields of power, conflicts and security from a gender perspective
Christiane Fröhlich
disaggregated enquiry gender-water nexus securitization water accesibility water conflict water policy