The provision of sanitation in India has attracted much attention, but research and policies focusing on gender in relation to sanitation often fail to focus on sanitation-related violence against women (VAW). This article focuses on research in Pune (in Maharashtra) and Jaipur (in Rajasthan). It offers evidence of slum-dwelling women's experiences of harassment and violence related to poor or absent sanitation facilities. In addition, it explores the strategies that women adopt to minimise risk and stress. Sanitation-related violence shows the connections between slum geographies and unequal intra-slum relationships of gender, caste, and economic and marital status, and the types of sanitation facilities available. These different identities shape women's experiences of VAW and they commonly blame men from 'outside' or 'other' groups, affecting their ability to act as a united group against violence. While sanitation is inadequate and inappropriate for women's needs across castes, community cohesion and the chances of collective action and advocacy to address sanitation needs are also compromised by tensions between groups in the slum.

Contemporary socio-economic transformations in South Asia are creating increasingly serious water problems (scarcity, flooding, pollution) and conflicts. Conflicts over water distribution, water-derived benefits, and risks often play out along axes of social differentiation like caste, wealth, and gender. Those with least power, rights, and voice suffer lack of access, exclusion, dispossession, and further marginalisation, resulting in livelihood insecurity or increased vulnerability to risks. In this paper we propose analysing these problems as problems of justice -problems of distribution, recognition, and political participation. Drawing on wider environmental justice approaches, a specific water justice focus needs to include both the specific characteristics of water as a resource and the access, rights, and equity dimensions of its control. We argue that recognising water problems as problems of justice requires a re-politicisation of water, as mainstream approaches to water resources, water governance, and legislation tend to normalise or naturalise their -basically political -distributional assumptions and implications. An interdisciplinary approach that sees water as simultaneously natural (material) and social is important here. We illustrate these conceptual and theoretical suggestions with evidence from India.

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This article addresses a gap in the water equity literature arising from the simultaneous use of surface water and groundwater in India. Using two diverse case studies -one agricultural (Kukdi) and one urban (Chennai) -we demonstrate how gaps in planning, design and policy exacerbate inequity. Groundwater abstraction from user wells allows wealthier users to both free-ride and capture a greater share of the resource. By converting a public resource to a private one, it worsens inequity and jeopardizes the sustainability of water projects. The article suggests that better monitoring, inter-agency coordination and rethinking water entitlements and norms are needed for going forward.

In this paper we present a situated analysis of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life of small-scale farmers and agricultural laborers in India, Algeria, and Morocco. We draw on data collected through phone interviews since April 2020. Inspired by feminist scholars, we analyze our findings thinking with—and entangling—the concepts of intersectionality, resilience and care. We firstly document the material impacts of the lockdown measures, focusing particularly on the experiences of single women farmers and laborers, whose livelihood and well-being have been notably compromised. Secondly, we unfold how different agricultural actors have come up with inventive ways to respond to the unexpected situation which they are facing. In doing so, we highlight the importance of considering the multiple and entangled socionatural challenges, uncertainties, and marginalizations that different agricultural actors experience, as well as the transformative potential of their inventive practices, which are often motivated and informed by notions of care.