The project, in partnership with the University of Toronto, examines grassroots and intergenerational understandings of water justice in Cape Town, South Africa. Through a workshop series, participants from five different social movements—water justice, racial justice, urban land rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights to discuss: conceptions of water justice; the role and value of water justice in lives and work; perspectives of linkages between water justice and other social justice issues and social movements; and apprehensions and aspirations for cross-movement water justice alliance building.

The Water Justice Toolkit 2024 was developed through this research, and contains resources, activities, and contacts aimed at supporting local actions towards water justice across social movements in Cape Town and beyond. The toolkit is available in both English and IsiXhosa.

This study was led by Principal Investigator Professor Carmen H. Logie at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW), and SSHINE Lab; and coordinated by FIFSW Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Sarah Van Borek. Local partner and co-applicant, Dr. Amber Abrams, Senior Research Officer at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute, served as Co-Principal Investigator. Other contributors included Dr. Lesley Gittings (Western University, Canada), Dr. Lina Taing (United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, Canada), and Dr. Amaya Perez-Brumer (University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Canada).


This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.