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Localizing resource insecurities: A biocultural perspective on water and wellbeing
Author(s) -
Brewis Alexandra A.,
Piperata Barbara,
Thompson Amanda L.,
Wutich Amber
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
wiley interdisciplinary reviews: water
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.413
H-Index - 24
ISSN - 2049-1948
DOI - 10.1002/wat2.1440
Subject(s) - syndemic , nexus (standard) , mental health , water security , enabling , sociology , disadvantage , biosocial theory , psychology , water resources , social psychology , public health , political science , ecology , medicine , nursing , personality , computer science , law , psychotherapist , biology , embedded system
A biocultural approach provides an emerging framework for clarifying the mechanisms that connect water security to human health and wellbeing. Five basic tenets of the biocultural approach are outlined: The focus on the local, the centrality of culture, the notion of embodied disadvantage, a concern with proximate mechanisms as a means to test theorized pathways, and recognition of intersecting and potentially amplified (syndemic) risks. From a review of both new and dispersed biocultural literature on household water, four key themes emerge: (a) individual vulnerabilities to the biological effects of water insecurity are shaped by cultural practices; (b) water insecurity is a powerful biocultural stressor on mental health; (c) water insecurity mediates between low power and worse health within communities, and through multiple mechanisms; (d) the household is a nexus for food–water interactions, each likely worsening each other and health through syndemic relationships. This sets an agenda for a biocultural approach to the household as a localizing nexus for manifesting the very human costs to mental and physical health of managing under conditions of extreme household resource insecurity. This article is categorized under: Engineering of Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented