Cities in the global South are home to most of the world’s population and 70% of the population in these cities lives in low-income neighbourhoods. However, we know little about the social AND ecological life within low-income homes in the urban South. And If we do not understand how the majority of humanity lives, in their ordinary routines, we cannot aspire to build inclusive and sustainable futures.

What we do know is that globally, the home is a place of gendered care work. BUT, we lack an understanding about how power relations, including gender ones, intertwine with the ecological realities of low-income homes in the urban South.

HOMECAPES takes water as an entry point of an investigation into these homes. Having limited access to infrastructure, most of these households obtain water from different sources and store it in and around the home.

AND stored water is never only water but is also home to organisms such as mosquitoes and microbes.

The presence of these organisms in stored water suggests that water may become a source of trouble: of illness, discomfort, and nuisance in domestic life.

This is relevant as studies have warned that raising temperatures, will drive the proliferation of Aedes mosquitoes (vectors for diseases such as dengue) and cause the decline of water quality.