Towards a feminist political ecology of health: Mystery kidney disease and the co-production of social, environmental, and bodily difference.

This article examines health improvement interventions targeting chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in Sri Lanka's north-central dry zone through an intersectional lens, emphasizing how social, ecological, and bodily differences co-produce uneven health outcomes. Drawing on ethnographic research, it highlights how initiatives such as community-scale reverse osmosis (RO) water filters and promotion of indigenous (deshiya) rice cultivation generate differentiated benefits and burdens: poor women disproportionately bear increased labor demands for water procurement, while economically and ecologically marginalized farmers face intensified agrochemical use and market constraints. The study argues that these interventions reconfigure local socioecological relations, producing new patterns of harm alongside health opportunities, and that understanding these dynamics requires integrating intersectionality into political ecologies of health. It concludes that without addressing the complex, intersecting axes of power shaping residents' capacities to adopt "healthful" practices, such schemes risk perpetuating inequalities and paradoxical effects in disease mitigation.