Infrastructural violence, water insecurity, and gender in northern Peru

This study examines how infrastructural violence is co-produced through the interaction of physical and social infrastructures, shaping gendered experiences of water insecurity in northern Peru. While prior research has demonstrated how inadequate physical water infrastructure produces unequal access and harm, less attention has been placed on how social infrastructures, such as gendered labor and water governance, interact with material systems to create compounded forms of harm. Drawing on qualitative data collected in January-February 2022 and April 2022 from interviews, focus groups, and a multistakeholder meeting in Tambogrande, Peru, we show that these intertwined systems produce a broad spectrum of adverse health outcomes, reproductive burdens, opportunity costs, and forms of gender-based violence. By doing so, we advance the concept of infrastructural violence by reconceptualizing it as an outcome of conjugated physical and social systems, rather than solely as a function of deficient material infrastructure or governance. By positioning social infrastructure as an equally constitutive force to physical infrastructure, this study provides a more precise framework for understanding how infrastructural inequities produce gendered harm in contexts characterized by resource scarcity and patriarchal norms. Our findings underscore the need for interventions that address both the material and social conditions shaping water access and burdens.