Water is Medicine: Reimagining Water Security through Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Relationships to Treated and Traditional Water Sources in Yukon, Canada

Sensing, knowing, and making water quality along Marikina River in the Philippines

Water quality is a major concern around the world, but assessments of quality often privilege producers, regulators and experts over consumers. With water supplies and sources constantly in flux, how do ordinary people experience and "sense" quality? How do they define "good" or "good enough" water, and what practices do they engage in to "make" good water? In this article, we attend to these questions by presenting findings from an open-ended qualitative study carried out along the Marikina River, Manila, the Philippines - a waterway that courses from rural and mountainous villages to highly urbanized communities. First, we describe the sensorial and cognitive attributes that people associate with the different water sources in their environment, as well as their decision-making regarding what kind of water to use for which purposes. Second, we present the "making" of water quality: how, in a context of polluted environments and water scarcity, do people try to secure water they consider acceptable for themselves and their families. Our findings reveal water quality as a contested, relational domain-one that reinforces social and health disparities and calls for further scholarship.

Indigenous Peoples understand human health relies on healthy waters

Indigenous Peoples' health is directly linked to the health of the waters. In Canada, First Nation communities are often the first to be affected by unhealthy waters regardless of Canada having a vast amount of fresh water. Indigenous Peoples view health as holistic encompassing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being that relies on healthy waters. They understand that health is directly linked to the health of the waters and have been stating so for several years. Water has become a human right but colonial water decision-making continues to allow for water pollution ignoring the Indigenous worldview that water is medicine. How can you have healthy people when the waters are contaminated. The Indigenous worldview and knowledge can provide solutions in water decision-making to ensure the waters continue to live their responsibility of providing health to humans and all life.

Indigenous communities and the mental health impacts of land dispossession related to industrial resource development: a systematic review

Globally, many resource extraction projects such as mines and hydroelectric dams are developed on the territories of Indigenous Peoples. Recognising land as a determinant of Indigenous Peoples' health, our objective is to synthesise evidence about the mental health impacts on Indigenous communities who experience land dispossession due to industrial resource development (mining, hydroelectric, petroleum, and agricultural). We systematically reviewed studies that focused on Indigenous land dispossession in Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), North and South America, and the Circumpolar North. We searched Scopus, Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and Global Health on OVID for peer-reviewed articles published in English from database inception to Dec 31, 2020. We also searched for books, research reports, and scholarly journals specialising in Indigenous health or Indigenous research. We included documents that reported on primary research, focused on Indigenous Peoples in settler colonial states, and reported on mental health and industrial resource development. Of the 29 included studies, 13 were related to hydroelectric dams, 11 to petroleum developments, nine to mining, and two to agriculture. Land dispossession due to industrial resource development had predominantly negative mental health impacts on Indigenous communities. The impacts were consequences of colonial relations that threatened Indigenous identities, resources, languages, traditions, spirituality, and ways of life. Health impact assessment processes in industrial resource development must expressly consider risks and potential impacts on mental health and respect Indigenous rights by making knowledge about mental health risks a central component to decisions about free, prior, and informed consent.

Water Sharing Is a Distressing Form of Reciprocity: Shame, Upset, Anger, and Conflict Over Water in Twenty Cross-Cultural Sites

Anthropological theories of reciprocity suggest it enhances prestige, social solidarity, and material security. Yet, some ethnographic cases suggest that water sharing-a form of reciprocity newly gaining scholarly attention-might work in the opposite way, increasing conflict and emotional distress. Using cross-cultural survey data from twenty global sites (n=4,267), we test how household water reciprocity (giving and receiving) is associated with negative emotional and social outcomes. Participation in water sharing as both givers and receivers is consistently associated with greater odds of reporting shame, upset, and conflict over water. Water sharing experiences in a large, diverse sample confirm a lack of alignment with predictions of classic reciprocity theories. Recent ethnographic research on reciprocity in contexts of deepening contemporary poverty will allow development of ethnographically informed theories to better explain negative experiences tied to water reciprocity.

Addressing rural and Indigenous health inequities in Canada through socially accountable health partnerships

BACKGROUND

There are few examples of the practical application of the concepts of social accountability, as defined by the World Bank and WHO, to health system change. This paper describes a robust approach led by First Nations Health Authority and the Rural Coordination Centre of British Columbia. This was achieved using partnerships in British Columbia, Canada, where the health system features inequities in service and outcomes for rural and Indigenous populations. Social accountability is achieved when all stakeholders come together simultaneously as partners and agree on a path forward. This approach has enabled socially accountable healthcare, effecting change in the healthcare system by addressing the needs of the population.

INNOVATION

Our innovative approach uses social accountability engagement to counteract persistent health inequities. This involves an adaptation of the Boelen Health Partnership model (policymakers, health administrators, health professionals, academics and community members) extended by addition of linked sectors (eg, industry and not-for-profits) to the 'Partnership Pentagram Plus'. We used appreciative inquiry and deliberative dialogue focused on the rural scale and integrating Indigenous ways of knowing along with western scientific traditions ('two-eyed seeing'). Using this approach, partners are brought together to identify common interests and direction as a learning community. Equitable engagement and provision of space as 'peers' and 'partners' were key to this process. Groups with varying perspectives came together to create solutions, building on existing strengths and new collaborative approaches to address specific issues in the community and health services delivery. A resulting provincial table reflecting the Pentagram Plus model has fostered policies and practices over the last 3 years that have resulted in meaningful collaborations for health service change.

CONCLUSION

This paper presents the application of the 'Partnership Pentagram Plus' approach and uses appreciative inquiry and deliberative dialogue to bring about practical and positive change to rural and Indigenous communities.

Natural Gas Gathering and Transmission Pipelines and Social Vulnerability in the United States

Midstream oil and gas infrastructure comprises vast networks of gathering and transmission pipelines that connect upstream extraction to downstream consumption. In the United States (US), public policies and corporate decisions have prompted a wave of proposals for new gathering and transmission pipelines in recent years, raising the question: Who bears the burdens associated with the existing pipeline infrastructure in the US? With this in mind, we examined the density of natural gas gathering and transmission pipelines in the US, together with county-level data on social vulnerability. For the 2,261 US counties containing natural gas pipelines, we found a positive correlation between county-level pipeline density and an index of social vulnerability. In general, counties with more socially vulnerable populations have significantly higher pipeline densities than counties with less socially vulnerable populations. In particular, counties in the top quartile of social vulnerability tend to have pipeline densities that are much higher than pipeline densities for counties in the bottom quartile of social vulnerability. The difference grows larger for counties at the upper extremes of pipeline density within each group. We discuss some of the implications for the indigenous communities and others affected by recent expansions of oil and gas infrastructure. We offer recommendations aimed at improving ways in which decision-makers identify and address the societal impacts and environmental justice implications of midstream pipeline infrastructure.

Nexus between Water Security Framework and Public Health: A Comprehensive Scientific Review

Water scarcity, together with the projected impacts of water stress worldwide, has led to a rapid increase in research on measuring water security. However, water security has been conceptualized under different perspectives, including various aspects and dimensions. Since public health is also an integral part of water security, it is necessary to understand how health has been incorporated as a dimension in the existing water security frameworks. While supply–demand and governance narratives dominated several popular water security frameworks, studies that are specifically designed for public health purposes are generally lacking. This research aims to address this gap, firstly by assessing the multiple thematic dimensions of water security frameworks in scientific disclosure; and secondly by looking into the public health dimensions and evaluating their importance and integration in the existing water security frameworks. For this, a systematic review of the Scopus database was undertaken using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A detailed review analysis of 77 relevant papers was performed. The result shows that 11 distinct dimensions have been used to design the existing water security framework. Although public health aspects were mentioned in 51% of the papers, direct health impacts were considered only by 18%, and indirect health impacts or mediators were considered by 33% of the papers. Among direct health impacts, diarrhea is the most prevalent one considered for developing a water security framework. Among different indirect or mediating factors, poor accessibility and availability of water resources in terms of time and distance is a big determinant for causing mental illnesses, such as stress or anxiety, which are being considered when framing water security framework, particularly in developing nations. Water quantity is more of a common issue for both developed and developing countries, water quality and mismanagement of water supply-related infrastructure is the main concern for developing nations, which proved to be the biggest hurdle for achieving water security. It is also necessary to consider how people treat and consume the water available to them. The result of this study sheds light on existing gaps for different water security frameworks and provides policy-relevant guidelines for its betterment. Also, it stressed that a more wide and holistic approach must be considered when framing a water security framework to result in sustainable water management and human well-being.

Global Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Approaches: Anthropological Contributions and Future Directions for Engineering

Anthropologists contribute key insights toward a comprehensive understanding of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) as a multidimensional, multiscalar, and culturally embedded phenomenon. Yet, these insights have yet to be sufficiently operationalized and implemented in WASH development and wider WASH access-related paradigms. Ensuring WASH security requires a comprehensive approach to identifying both human health risk and environmental impact of WASH-related programs and strategies. It requires an understanding of how sanitation is integrated into households and communities and how individuals within particular cultural contexts practice sanitation and hygiene. This work facilitates that goal by outlining the major contributions of anthropology and allied social sciences to WASH, as well as outlining key considerations for future work and collaboration. We identify six major themes that, if applied in future engineering approaches, will more equitably integrate stakeholders and multiple vantage points in the successful implementation of WASH projects for marginalized and diverse groups. These include a critical understanding of previous approaches, culturally aware interventions, capacity building that considers (un)intended impact, co-created technology, collaboration between fields such as anthropology and engineering, and challenge-ready initiatives that respond to historic and emergent social and environmental inequity.

Our Relationship to Water and Experience of Water Insecurity among Apsáalooke (Crow Indian) People, Montana

Affordable access to safe drinking water is essential to community health, yet there is limited understanding of water insecurity among Native Americans. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to describe Apsáalooke (Crow Indian) tribal members' experiences with water insecurity. For Apsáalooke people, local rivers and springs are still vitally important for traditional cultural activities. We interviewed 30 Native American adults living on the Crow Reservation in Southeastern Montana. Participants answered six open-ended interview questions about their water access, costs of obtaining water and changes in their domestic and traditional water uses. Participants emphasized how the use of water has changed over time and described the complex challenges associated with addressing water insecurity in their community, including the importance of considering the spiritual and cultural impacts of water insecurity on health. Water insecurity is a growing global problem and more attention and efforts are needed to find appropriate and affordable solutions.

An Indigenous Research Methodology That Employs Anishinaabek Elders, Language Speakers and Women’s Knowledge for Sustainable Water Governance

Indigenous research paradigms are congruent to Indigenous worldviews and have become more dominant in areas such as Indigenous policy and education. As Indigenous research paradigms continue to gain momentum, the historical legacy of unethical research is addressed as more Indigenous communities and organizations develop their own research protocols. There is a plethora of articles explaining Indigenous research methodologies, but few examine the inclusion of the knowledge from Elders, language speakers, and Indigenous women in sustainable water governance. My Indigenous research methodology draws on the works of Indigenous scholars Shawn Wilson, Linda Smith, and Margaret Kovach, with specific focus on Wendy Geniusz’s Biskaabiiyang. My Indigenous research methodology is specific to the Anishinaabe territory of the Great Lakes region and includes Anishinaabek Elders, Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway language) speakers, and Anishinaabek women. This article seeks to contribute to Indigenous research paradigms and methods by elucidating the importance of engaging Anishinaabek Elders, Anishinaabemowin speakers, and Anishinaabek women in sustainable water governance.

Water and mental health

There is a well‐established connection among water quality, sanitation, and physical health. The potentially important relationship between water and mental health is considerably less studied. Reviewing evidence from ethnography, geography, folklore, indigenous studies, rural medicine, drought research, and large‐n statistical studies, we argue there is now good theoretical rationale and growing evidence of water insecurity as a possible driver of mental ill‐health. Furthermore, some nascent evidence suggests that emotionally meaningful interactions with water might improve mental health outcomes. Leveraging these literatures, we address the many ways in which mental health outcomes are conceptualized and operationalized in water research, including as emotional distress, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, somatic symptoms, and quality of life. We outline arguments supporting seven possible (and likely interlocking) mechanisms that could explain such a relationship: (a) material deprivation and related uncertainty, (b) shame of social failure, (c) worry about health threats, (d) loss of connections to people and places, (e) frustration around opportunity losses and restricted autonomy, (f) interpersonal conflict and intimate partner violence, and (g) institutional injustice or unfairness. However, we explain that as most existing studies are ethnographic, qualitative, or cross‐sectional, a causal relationship between water and mental ill‐health is yet to be confirmed empirically. More research on this topic is needed, particularly given that poorly understood connections may create barriers to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 3 (health) and 6 (water). We further suggest that tracking mental health indicators may provide unique and as‐yet underappreciated insights into the efficacy of water projects and other development interventions.

This article is categorized under:

Breaching Barriers: The Fight for Indigenous Participation in Water Governance

Indigenous peoples worldwide face barriers to participation in water governance, which includes planning and permitting of infrastructure that may affect water in their territories. In the United States, the extent to which Indigenous voices are heard—let alone incorporated into decision-making—depends heavily on whether or not Native nations are recognized by the federal government. In the southeastern United States, non-federally recognized Indigenous peoples continue to occupy their homelands along rivers, floodplains, and wetlands. These peoples, and the Tribal governments that represent them, rarely enter environmental decision-making spaces as sovereign nations and experts in their own right. Nevertheless, plans to construct the Atlantic Coast Pipeline prompted non-federally recognized Tribes to demand treatment as Tribal nations during permitting. Actions by the Tribes, which are recognized by the state of North Carolina, expose barriers to participation in environmental governance faced by Indigenous peoples throughout the United States, and particularly daunting challenges faced by state-recognized Tribes. After reviewing the legal and political landscapes that Native nations in the United States must navigate, we present a case study focused on Atlantic Coast Pipeline planning and permitting. We deliberately center Native voices and perspectives, often overlooked in non-Indigenous narratives, to emphasize Indigenous actions and illuminate participatory barriers. Although the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was cancelled in 2020, the case study reveals four enduring barriers to Tribal participation: adherence to minimum standards, power asymmetries, procedural narrowing, and “color-blind” planning. We conclude by highlighting opportunities for federal and state governments, developers, and Indigenous peoples to breach these barriers.

Are the natural sciences ready for truth, healing, and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada? Exploring 'settler readiness' at a world-class freshwater research station

The Experimental Lakes Area in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, is a globally prominent freshwater research facility, conducting impactful whole-of-lake experiments on so-called 'pristine' lakes and watersheds. These lakes are located in traditional Anishinaabe (Indigenous) territory and the home of 28 Treaty #3 Nations, something rarely acknowledged until now. Indeed, Indigenous peoples in the area have historically been excluded from the research facility's governance and research. Shortly after it changed hands in 2014-from the federal government to the not-for-profit International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD)-the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its Calls to Action to all Canadians. The newly named International Institute of Sustainable Development-Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA) began to respond with a number of initiatives aimed to develop relationships with local Indigenous peoples and communities. In this paper, from the perspectives of IISD-ELA staff members, we share findings from an exploratory study into the relationships beginning to develop between IISD-ELA and Treaty #3 Nations. We used semi-structured interviews (n = 10) to identify how staff perceived their initial efforts and contextualize those with the current literature on meaningfully engagement in reconciliation. Our analysis highlights perceived barriers, including time, resources, and funding constraints, as well as an acknowledged lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity training. Participants also recognized the need to engage Indigenous knowledge holders and embrace their ways of knowing at the research station. While the study is small in scale, as an international leader in freshwater science, transparency in the IISD-ELA's journey in reconciliation has the potential to inform, influence, and 'unsettle' settler-colonial scientists, field stations, and institutions across the country and beyond.

Indigenous Perspectives on Water Security in Saskatchewan, Canada

The term “water security” continues to gain traction in water resources literature with broad application to human health, water quality, and sustainability of water supply. These western science applications focus almost exclusively on the material value of water for human uses and activities. This paper offers voice to other interpretations of water security based on semi-structured interviews with Indigenous participants representing varied backgrounds and communities from Saskatchewan, a Canadian prairie province. The results indicate that water security from an Indigenous perspective embraces much more than the material value of water. Five themes emerged from this research that speak to a more holistic framing of water security to include water as a life form, water and the spirit world, women as water-keepers, water and human ethics, and water in Indigenous culture. This broader interpretation provides a more nuanced understanding of water security, which serves to enrich the water security narrative while educating western science.

Re-Theorizing Politics in Water Governance

This Special Issue on water governance features a series of articles that highlight recent and emerging concepts, approaches, and case studies to re-center and re-theorize “the political” in relation to decision-making, use, and management—collectively, the governance of water. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance. Further reflected is a focus on diverse ontologies, epistemologies, meanings and values of water, related contestations concerning its use, and water’s importance for livelihoods, identity, and place-making. Taken together, the articles in this Special Issue challenge the ways that water governance remains too often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning. By re-centering the political, and by developing analytics that enable and support this endeavor, the contributions throughout highlight the varied, contested, and important ways that water governance needs to be recalibrated and enlivened with keen attention to politics—broadly understood.

“We Don’t Drink the Water Here”: The Reproduction of Undrinkable Water for First Nations in Canada

First Nation communities in Canada are disproportionately plagued by undrinkable water and insufficient household sanitation. In addition, water resource management in First Nation communities has long been a technocratic and scientific mission controlled by state-led authorities. There has been limited engagement of First Nations in decision-making around water management and water governance. As such, problems associated with access to drinkable water and household sanitation are commonly positioned as hydrological or environmental problems (flood or drought) to be fixed by technical and engineering solutions. This apolitical reading has been criticized for not addressing the root cause of the First Nation water problem, but instead, of reproducing it. In this paper, an approach using political ecology will tease out key factors contributing to the current water problem in many First Nation communities. Using case study research set in source water protection planning, this paper explains how persistent colonial practices of the state continue to reproduce undrinkable water and insufficient household sanitation. Solutions to this ‘water problem’ require greater attention to First Nations water governance capacity and structures.

Reclaiming Indigenous Planning as a Pathway to Local Water Security

Access to drinkable water is essential to human life. The consequence of unsafe drinking water can be damaging to communities and catastrophic to human health. Today, one in five First Nation communities in Canada is on a boil water advisory, with some advisories lasting over 10 years. Factors contributing to this problem stretch back to colonial structures and institutional arrangement that reproduce woefully inadequate community drinking water systems. Notwithstanding these challenges, First Nation communities remain diligent, adaptive, and innovative in their efforts to provide drinkable water to their community members. One example is through the practice of source water protection planning. Source water is untreated water from groundwater or surface water that supplies drinking water for human consumption. Source water protection is operationalized through land and water planning activities aimed at reducing the risk of contamination from entering a public drinking water supply. Here, we introduce a source water protection planning process at Muskowekwan First Nation, Treaty 4, Saskatchewan. The planning process followed a community-based participatory approach guided by trust, respect, and reciprocity between community members and university researchers. Community members identified threats to the drinking water source followed by restorative land management actions to reduce those threats. The result of this process produced much more than a planning document but engaged multiple community members in a process of empowerment and self-determination. The process of plan-making produced many unintended results including human–land connectivity, reconnection with the water spirit, as well as the reclaiming of indigenous planning. Source water protection planning may not correct all the current water system inadequacies that exist on many First Nations, but it will empower communities to take action to protect their drinking water sources for future generations as a pathway to local water security.