The Health Consequences of Urbanization in Nepal: Perspectives from a Participatory Photo Project with Recent Rural-Urban Migrants

Abstract

What new challenges to health do recent rural-to-urban migrants in Nepal face? How do newly urbanized individuals navigate and seek healthcare in the city? This photo essay offers a glimpse of the answers to these questions from the perspective of newly urbanized people living in Kirtipur and Pokhara, two rapidly growing urban areas in Nepal. It draws on a nine-month participatory study which used participatory photography, amongst other methods, to better understand the health opportunities and risks faced by new rural-urban migrants. All photographs presented in this essay were taken and selected by research participants and are accompanied by their narrations of what these images represent to them. Consequently, this essay provides insights into how the newly urbanized themselves understand
threats to their health, and how they understand the urban health system they are confronted with as service users.