GENDER AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS MEDIATING MOBILITY AND ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES AND FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN RURAL NEPAL

Based on original ethnographic and microdemographic data collected in two distinct geographical regions of Nepal, this paper examines the gendered dynamics that mediate female mobility and access to health services. Fieldwork was conducted in the highland region of north-east Nepal, following the building of a road linking communities with local and central health services. It revealed a constellation of factors constraining female access to health services and even increasing the vulnerability of their reproductive health. A decade later, further research conducted in the far western lowlands of Nepal sharply brought into focus how, in spite of a decentralized health policy and a wider range of motorized and intermediate transport options, rural communities faced barriers to accessing health services that related to wider political change and conflict. In both settings, the implications of gendered factors mediating mobility aggravated by the political and security context have hampered access to the very health services that have the greatest impacts on women and children’s health and inclusion in the development process