IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

Both Social and Political Determinants of Health have been immensely helpful in redressing issues around healthcare delivery as they unveil the ways in which institutions, stereotypes and environments impact the right to health. Building upon this discussion, my research finds that an epistemic element is being overlooked in the study of socio-political determinants of health in urban settings. In other words, understanding disease pathways through their socio-spatial manifestations is key to deconstructing the prevalent knowledge systems that enable the bio-geo-political production of place and its inherent urban health injustices. As such, social and spatial elements constitute each other in urban settings such as Lagos (Nigeria) and Liverpool (UK) where the stratified proximity to different living sources, services and urban goods reflect the prevalent socio-economic, ethnic and racial hierarchies. The suggested contribution is based on the investigation of one of the most pressing issues of urban health: how water circulates through and produces socio-material dialectics in Liverpool and Lagos – two cities interlinked through the transatlantic slave trade. More specifically, my research investigates how access to, entanglements with and consumption of water is shaped not only by the quality and availability of infrastructures but also by social norms, shifting climate, cultural beliefs and epistemic systems around health. As such, my aim is to contribute to a socio-spatial syntax of urban water, and invite a deeper engagement with urban health inequalities while redressing tilted epistemic infrastructures based on a narrow understanding of urbanity.