Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Anthropology
Major Professor
E. Christian Wells, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Tara Deubel, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Heather O'Leary, Ph.D.
Keywords
environmental justice, risk perception, underbounding, water infrastructure, water insecurity
Abstract
Recent research on water insecurity in the United States has revealed that underbounded communities — urban disadvantaged unincorporated neighborhoods characterized by high-poverty and high residential density lying just outside the border of an incorporated municipality — often lack consistent access to clean and safe water. In these settings, poor water quality and inadequate infrastructure shape residents’ risk perceptions often leading to tap water mistrust. However, little is known about the broader social, political, and economic drivers of water quality in these settings and how such drivers inform the social construction of risk across different stakeholder groups. Using an underbounded African-American/Hispanic neighborhood in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region as a case study, this paper examines how tap water mistrust is socially constructed and how these constructions contrast between neighborhood residents and government officials. Interviews and participant observation with these groups reveal that tap water mistrust emerges from the nexus of inadequate infrastructure, poor housing conditions, affordability challenges, and jurisdictional disconnects. We call for interventions that foreground participatory research, integrate social and cultural context into technical solutions, and prioritize equitability in decision-making.
Scholar Commons Citation
Vidmar, Abby, "“That’s What We Call ‘Aesthetics’”: The Social Construction of Tap Water Mistrust in an Underbounded Community" (2022). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10363
