Water resistance: a study of environmental justice, resilience and citizen science activism in Mexico City (360G-Wellcome-208091_Z_17_Z)

This research will explore resilience in the context of environmental justice, with a focus on water insecurity in Mexico City. The concept of resilience is central to public health and climate change discourse, but is rarely critiqued. Addressing this omission is crucial: resilience frameworks can conceal social inequalities, uphold political status quo, and overlook local experience. Equally, few anthropological studies have examined resilience and urban water insecurity. In Mexico City these gaps are especially prescient. The third most water-stressed city in the world, low-income neighbourhoods have limited access to water. Communities often protest in response. Drawing together an ethnographic study with the digital participatory methods of citizen science, the goals of this research are to: Understand the meaning and practices of resilience amongst people who experience water insecurity. Investigate the role of digital technology and citizen science in this space. Inform future uses of resilience in environmental justice research, design and policy. Through these objectives, the research acts at the intersection of social inequality, public health and the environment. The outcomes will contribute to anthropological theory and knowledge, open the potential for trans-disciplinary collaborations, and bring a more sensitive and ethical perspective to the overlap of climate change and health.