The purpose of this ethnographic research is to describe the under-articulated relationship between women and water in the specific socio-geographic context of the Romanian Danube Delta.
I conducted a series of narrative interviews with women from different age cohorts in two locations of the Danube Delta, supported by extensive anthropological fieldwork. Additionally, I gathered data through participant observation of various community events and activities.
Women possess distinct, gendered ways of understanding and relating to nature and aquatic environments. Women's relationship with water is shaped by the particularities of their life cycles and their interconnected roles within the community. Immersive engagement with everyday practices and social relations offers insight into how women mobilize social capital and networks not only for their own livelihoods, but also for sustaining community cohesion.
The sample of respondents is limited, using a snowball method, which may limit the diversity of experiences captured. Additionally, local people often take their natural surroundings for granted, making it challenging to articulate their implicit relationship with the environment.
Understanding women's relationship to nature can inform ongoing discussions on local knowledge and culture, the effects of nature-protection policies on communities and the significance of embodied connections to the environment. Such insights may also encourage the meaningful inclusion of women and their gendered experiences as stakeholders in these debates.
Research focused on women's lives and livelihoods in the Romanian Danube Delta is, with few notable exceptions, still scarce; approaching this topic through the theoretical lens of hydro-feminism increases the value of this contribution.
