Towards an integrated theoretical framework for understanding water insecurity and gender-based violence in Low-and middle-income countries (LMICs)

Disparities in access to basic needs and resources such as water is largely borne out of power imbalance across scale. In examining these power dynamics in the context of health inequalities, scholars have deployed Feminist political ecology analytical framework to situate gender and other forms of vulnerability as emerging from unequal power relations, and political ecology of health to emphasise the health implications of inherent relational power in the distribution of resources. Although appealing, the two theoretical frameworks over time have proven to be limiting in the study of intersectional vulnerabilities such as gender-based violence and water insecurity which reflect multiple dimensions of unequal power structures. This study expands the theoretical space for the study of inequalities in health geography by demonstrating the utility of incorporating feminist political ecology with political ecology of health to form an integrated theoretical framework – Feminist Political Ecology of Health (FPEH). This proposed theoretical framework gives guidance for engaging with a suite of questions and methods related to multifaceted problems such as water insecurity and gender based-violence. The paper highlights these theoretical issues and then discusses how FPEH can enrich research on water security and gender-based violence in Low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).