Embodied empowerment: using embodiment to understand nutrition–empowerment connections

ABSTRACT

Despite a rich body of empowerment literature in development studies, our understanding of how empowerment influences health outcomes such as nutrition remains limited to the pathways depicted in dominant frameworks. Given the inconsistent results of programs based on such frameworks, this paper engages with a recent scholarly argument that deeper engagement with critical nutrition concepts may help practitioners design frameworks that achieve greater and more equitable success. This article tests embodiment as a critical approach to understanding the biosocial dynamics of empowerment and nutrition in three communities of Central Nepal. We used a participatory visual method to explore food practices and health outcomes tied to experiences of low, intermediate, and high levels of empowerment. In addition to demonstrating how empowerment is truly an embodied sensation, our findings reveal that development messaging around empowerment may be contributing to local understandings that compromise positive nutrition outcomes in these communities, particularly among women.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender and diversity
• food security
• NGO
• region: South Asia

Acknowledgement

Funded in whole or part by the US Agency for International Development Bureau for Food Security under Agreement AIDOAA-L-15-00003 as part of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors alone.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 We refer to the villages as Villages A, B, and C to conserve the anonymity of respondents.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by United States Agency for International Development [grant number AID-OAA-L-15-00003].

Notes on contributors

Katharine McNamara

Katharine McNamara is a doctoral candidate at the University of Florida in the Department of Environmental and Global Health. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Bachelor of Arts in Spanish at UF in 2014, Katharine pursued a master’s degree in Public Health. During her master’s studies, she examined the complex relationships between gender, development, health, and environment in Honduras and Nepal. In 2017, was awarded the McKnight Fellowship to support five years of PhD study. While she has maintained research within the realm of development studies, her current work examines the environmental and gendered implications of public health and conservation initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador.

Sarah McKune

Dr Sarah McKune is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Global Health (EGH) and the Center for African Studies. She holds a B.A. in French and Sociology (Wofford College; 1999) an MPH (Emory University; 2002), and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology (University of Florida; 2012), and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (2013-2016). She served as the Director of Public Health Programs at UF from 2013–2016 and has served as the Human Health and Nutrition Cross Cutting Theme leader for the USAID funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems since 2015. Dr McKune's research investigates the complex, human and natural system dynamics, such as hygiene, livestock ownership, climate change, race/ethnicity, and gender/power dynamics, that affect human health outcomes. This work largely focuses on child growth and nutritional outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa; however, Dr McKune's work has contributed to understanding of HIV/AIDS, maternal health outcomes, Ebola, and, most recently, COVID-19.