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Paper short abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the drought-stricken region of Catalonia, Spain, this contribution explores how frequent droughts remediate gendered forms of reproductive labor and public contestation.

Paper long abstract

The region of Catalunya (Spain) suffered a period of severe drought between 2022 and 2024, during which existing social inequalities concerning water use and rights surfaced, while new ones emerged, in both rural and urban areas. Focussing on this region, this contribution examines diverse state, community, and private responses to these droughts. Specifically, it draws on feminist scholarship to theorize two core components of these responses that cross various scales, ranging from private ‘adaptation’ to public organization. First, it examines the way droughts (re)mediated reproductive labour and care work in households, specifically as it pertained to practices of washing, cleaning, and cooking. Second, it examines how this intense period of drought led to renewed forms of mobilization and organization, and examines how such initiatives variously centre or gloss over the gendered dimensions in access and use of water in everyday life. Drawing these insights together, this contribution examines the potential of hydrofeminist perspectives for the anthropological study of gender and water as developed within the environmental humanities (Neimanis 2017) to think solidarities across bodies, spaces (nominally public and private), and scales.

Given Catalonia's traditionally politicised and organised society, this article proposes applying a hydrofeminist perspective to understand how this situation has affected and reshaped reproductive labour and care, for both humans and non-humans, by taking a close look at the controversies and politics of water when this is experienced as a contested issue.