Safe and secure water is a cornerstone of modern life in the global North. This article critically examines a set of prevalent myths about household water in high‐income countries, with a focus on Canada and the United States. Taking a relational approach, we argue that household water insecurity is a product of institutionalized structures and power, manifests unevenly through space and time, and is reproduced in places we tend to assume are the most water‐secure in the world. We first briefly introduce “modern water” and the modern infrastructural ideal, a highly influential set of ideas that have shaped household water provision and infrastructure development over the past two centuries. Against this backdrop, we consolidate evidence to disrupt a set of narratives about water in high‐income countries: the notion that water access is universal, clean, affordable, trustworthy, and uniformly or equitably governed. We identify five thematic areas of future research to delineate an agenda for advancing scholarship and action—including challenges of legal and regulatory regimes, the housing‐water nexus, water affordability, and water quality and contamination. Data gaps underpin the experiences of household water insecurity. Taken together, our review of water security for households in high‐income countries provides a conceptual map to direct critical research in this area for the coming years.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water

The reflexive turn in sociology and across much of the social sciences has brought a central focus on the “self” within research encounters. Within this context, qualitative researchers are required to highlight how their positionality shapes their research experience. In this article, we interrogate how our own personal experiences as native Ghanaians conducting research at home and away from home in two different African countries—Ghana and Malawi—shaped our research positionality. We use the framework of credibility and approachability and develop new categories such as the eager learner. We show how our performed behaviors and perceived characteristics enabled and constrained our access to research participants and information. The analysis contributes to the research methods literature by highlighting the fieldwork encounter as a site of shifting, negotiated, and fluid positionalities for both fully insiders and fully outsiders.

Over 70% of Malawi’s urban population lives in informal settlements, where households regularly face chronic water insecurity. This article utilizes mixed methods – household surveys (N = 645), field observations, focus groups and interviews – to examine household water insecurity in three urban informal settlements of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital and largest city. The study finds that water insecurity arises from overdependence on communal water kiosks which are insufficient in number, have high nonfunctional rates, are prone to vandalism, and provide water irregularly; lack of alternative improved water sources; and a significant time burden due to long waiting times and multiple trips to water sources. The findings underscore why water insecurity in Africa’s urban informal settlements deserves urgent policy attention.

Water insecurity is a critical public-health challenge in Africa's urban informal settlements, where most of the population often lacks access to household taps. In these settings, water fetching is disproportionately performed by women. While water fetching is physically laborious and exposes women to multiple risks, the water-insecurity literature has predominantly focused on household experiences, ignoring women's water-collection journeys. This paper uses the water journey as a window into the embodied dimensions of water insecurity. Combining theoretical insights from embodiment, embodied political ecology of health, and time geographies, we use video-recorded walking interviews to analyze women's everyday water journeys in Ntopwa, an urban informal settlement in Blantyre, Malawi, from initial decision making through exposure to water-fetching risks and household practices regarding use and storage. We identify three principal sources of environmental risk- terrain, built environment, and human behavior-that present challenges for water collectors. Using the walking interview as a heuristic, we show how the seemingly simple practice of water fetching is compounded by complex decision making, constant spatiotemporal trade-offs, and exposure to diverse risks, all of which have embodied health consequences. Based on our findings, we conclude that interventions seeking to improve household water insecurity must consider the embodied effects of water-fetching journeys. This study also provides methodological insights into using walking interviews and videos for water and health research.

This article synthesizes the literature on historical and emerging institutional arrangements for urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa to highlight successes, drawbacks, and opportunities for improving future water access. It traces the influence of decades-long global water initiatives on urban water-policy reforms in the region and reviews evidence on emerging community self-help and partnership models. Finally, it discusses the merits, targets and potential of Sustainable Development Goal 6 to improve urban water access in the region. The findings suggest that improving urban water supply in Sub-Saharan Africa requires innovative governance and institutional arrangements that blend the strengths of public, private and community-based water supply models.