Abstract:
Reliable access to safe sanitation is a cornerstone of human health and gender equality. Over the last 10 years, the risks of sexual violence and sexual harassment (SVSH) associated with inadequate access to household latrines have received considerable attention. This is especially true of studies on seeking sanitation under cover of darkness. Here I examine the evidentiary basis of claims that incidences of SVSH can be reduced with better access to latrines. I focus on SVSH towards women and girls, though all genders can face sexual violence. I argue that promoting household (or on premises) latrines as a protection against sexual violence cements entrenched biases about ‘good’ girls, ‘true’ rape, and the place of women in public spaces. Thus, arguments claiming that latrine construction is an important tool against SVSH, while gender-sensitive in intent, can be misogynistic in impact.

Safely managed waste reuse may be a sustainable way to protect human health and livelihoods in agrarian-based countries without adequate sewerage. The safe recovery and reuse of fecal sludge fertilizer (FSF) has become an important policy discussion in low-income economies as a way to manage urban sanitation to benefit peri-urban agriculture. But what drives the user acceptance of composted fecal sludge? We develop a preference-ranking model to understand the attributes of FSF that contribute to its acceptance in Karnataka, India. We use this traditionally economic modeling method to uncover cultural practices and power disparities underlying the waste economy. We model farmowners and farmworkers separately, as the choice to use FSF as an employer versus as an employee is fundamentally different. We find that farmers who are willing to use FSF prefer to conceal its origins from their workers and from their own caste group. This is particularly the case for caste-adhering, vegetarian farmowners. We find that workers are open to using FSF if its attributes resemble cow manure, which they are comfortable handling. The waste economy in rural India remains shaped by caste hierarchies and practices, but these remain unacknowledged in policies promoting sustainable ‘business’ models for safe reuse. Current efforts under consideration toward formalizing the reuse sector should explicitly acknowledge caste practices in the waste economy, or they may perpetuate the size and scope of the caste-based informal sector.

Abstract: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, India’s flagship sanitation intervention, set out to end open defecation by October 2019. While the program improved toilet coverage nationally, large regional disparities in construction and use remain. Our study used ethnographic methods to explore perspectives on open defecation and latrine use, and the socio-economic and political reasons for these perspectives, in rural Bihar. We draw on insights from social epidemiology and political ecology to explore the structural determinants of latrine ownership and use. Though researchers have often pointed to rural residents’ preference for open defecation, we found that people were
aware of its many risks. We also found that (i) while sanitation research and “behavior change” campaigns often conflate the reluctance to adopt latrines with a preference for open defecation, this is an erroneous conflation; (ii) a subsidy can help (some) households to construct latrines but the amount of the subsidy and the manner of its disbursement are key to its usefulness; and (iii) widespread resentment towards what many rural residents view as a development bias against rural areas reinforces distrust towards the government overall and its Swachh Bharat Abhiyan-funded latrines in particular. These social-structural explanations for the slow uptake of sanitation in rural
Bihar (and potentially elsewhere) deserve more attention in sanitation research and promotion efforts

India’s flagship program on sanitation and hygiene – the Swachh Bharat Mission – aims to eliminate open defecation and to manage urban waste for a ‘Clean India’. The emptying of toilet pits and the transport of waste are as critical as more toilets are for sustainable sanitation. In unsewered cities of the global South, these services are mainly provided by privately run cleaning trucks. We find that the physical and social mechanisms through which these services are organized are virtually invisible in national fecal sludge and waste management policies. Based on a rich ethnography of cleaning trucks in Bangalore, India, we show that trucking operations dispose of sludge in ways that harm both public health and the environment, and that the caste composition of sanitation work helps to keep it invisible from officials and the public. We draw on the concept of the social role of disgust to explain the seen-and-unseen nature of these trucks. ‘Seeing’ sludge management as it is practiced is essential for understanding how the sanitary city is being produced and for the success of future sanitation reforms.

Sanitation research focuses primarily on containing human waste and preventing disease; thus, it has traditionally been dominated by the fields of environmental engineering and public health. Over the past 20 years, however, the field has grown broader in scope and deeper in complexity, spanning diverse disciplinary perspectives. In this article, we review the current literature in the range of disciplines engaged with sanitation research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We find that perspectives on what sanitation is, and what sanitation policy should prioritize, vary widely. We show how these diverse perspectives augment the conventional sanitation service chain, a framework describing the flow of waste from capture to disposal.

We review how these perspectives can inform progress toward equitable sanitation for all [i.e., Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6]. Our key message is that both material and nonmaterial flows—and both technological and social functions—make up a sanitation “system.” The components of the sanitation service chain are embedded within the flows of finance, decision making, and labor that make material flows of waste possible. The functions of capture, storage, transport, treatment, reuse, and disposal are interlinked with those of ensuring equity and affordability. We find that a multilayered understanding of sanitation, with contributions from multiple disciplines, is necessary to facilitate inclusive and robust research toward the goal of sanitation for all.

India’s National Urban Sanitation Policy and its flagship programme, the Swachh Bharat Mission, strongly recommend mechanical technologies for safe faecal sludge management. But, how do septic tank cleaners live and work, and why are their practices not “safe”? An evening spent in observation of their work and in conversation with cleaners and truck drivers in Bengaluru aka Bangalore is recounted.

In 2013, manual scavenging, or the cleaning of “dry” latrines with unprotected hands, was abolished in India. Yet, millions of dry latrines are still manually serviced by Dalit labour. The Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Mission has put little effort into the health and dignity of sanitation workers relative to its efforts on subsidising and encouraging latrine-building. A few days spent with the Valmiki community in Lucknow are recounted.

Abstract

Decentralized technologies and city-based governance are being actively promoted for urban sanitation in low-income countries. At the same time, municipal agencies in developing countries have little technical or financial capacity for sanitation planning. This paper develops an approach to sanitation planning that leverages citizen engagement and fosters local capacities. It presents an empirical study from two small towns in India, where collaborations among the research team, local academics and students, and the municipal government, produced planning-oriented sanitary maps of each town. The maps were built upon a social and spatial understanding of the diverse sanitation practices that already exist, coupled with Google Earth and free GIS software. The ‘waste watersheds’ and ‘sanitation zones’ identified through the mapping process provide a basis on which sanitation interventions can be assessed and weighed, so that sustainable solutions can be prioritized. The paper identifies three features for system interventions: first, making local municipal government the locus of sanitation interventions; second, engaging community-based organizations and academic institutions to develop local capacity; and finally, recognizing the fragmented nature of cities by developing a socio-spatial approach to sanitation zoning.

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