As my previous post
alluded, failures to address sanitation deficiency in SSA lie in a parochial
understanding of what sanitation actually means to people. That said, this post
would go further to suggest that this misjudgement is itself bound up within an
international trepidation about all things faecal. Despite the intimate concern
of every human on the planet, the disposal of human waste remains something of
taboo subject. It engenders something distasteful and unmentionable, spoken
only in manner of lewd ribaldry (Black & Fawcett, 2008:3). Whilst this may
be sufficient scrutiny in countries of water sewers and disposal systems, when
trying to implement meaningful sanitation upheaval it becomes problematic. How
can change be expected in a problem no one is willing to articulate, even
acknowledge? Ultimately, this has led to ‘hardware’ sanitation projects having
little effect without their complementing ‘software’ counterparts. Indeed,
unless people from the developing world live in circumstances that predispose
them towards toilets, why would they use them? This disregard is also
exacerbated by an ‘absence of academic curiosity’ enduring the tired assumption
that sanitation will come with water (George, 2008:151). For example, we talk of
the menace of water-borne disease when it is more a menace of lacking sanitation
that contaminates water to begin with. Black & Fawcett advocate the pressing
need to unpack and challenge these anathemas to generate truthful knowledge of
the problem to be solved.
As part of this, the
temporal and spatial variations of the sanitation taboo must be acknowledged.
As is the common leitmotif of wider development studies, place and space
determine unique facets of a problem reflecting specific cultural contexts.
Thus is the need for more ‘place-sensitive and participatory approaches to
sanitation that are sensitive to local culture, socio-economic status,
political ecology and physical environment’ (Jewitt, 2011:609). This point is
particularly pertinent in Africa where vast open plains and relative isolation
have fostered a variety of unique cultural principles. For example, the Akan
community in Ghana are so disgusted by the idea of human excrement that they
have ‘refused to think about it’ (Van der Geest, 1998:12). Instead they employ
‘krufoo’ workers often from Liberia
or Sierra Leone who work at night to remain ‘invisible and out of mind’
(1998:10). In Madagascar, there are
strong cultural taboos against one persons excreta being put on top of
another’s – a seemingly sensible rule where the heat of the sun works to
deodorize and crumble the waste. They also have strong rejections to burying
waste in the ground for fear of it contaminating the dead (Black & Fawcett, 2008:82). In Uganda, British colonial reports suggested opposition to the use
of cesspits because of a perceived risk of sorcery (Gillanders, 1940 in Jewitt,2011:615).
Yet, views of
sanitation are also perceived along axis of race. In the colonial imagination, ‘binaries
separating clean and sanitary Europeans from their disgusting colonial others’
established distinct geographies of provision and perception (Jewitt,2011:610). These ardent colonial legacies are still present in African cultures
of sanitation. For example McFarlane & Silver detail how sanitation in Cape
Town exists not as a problem of service provision but as one of
‘socio-political syndrome’ (2017:126). Sanitation here is more than just
toilets and waste disposal; it is a deeply historical process of racism and
colonial segregation that although banished from the surface, endures in the
inner workings and unspoken facets of the urban form. To this end, McFarlane
& Silver advise that addressing problems of sanitation in Cape Town are
impossible without first addressing problems of race (p.126).
Gendered perceptions
of sanitation are also central to understandings of sanitation taboos and
failures. Again, there can be specific geographies to this difference but in
all occurrences; men and women have very different needs and experiences of
sanitation. Typically, women have particular issues around safety and privacy
that require facilities that are not only dignified but geographically nearby.
Indeed, for many women of the global South the threat of molestation forces
them to wait until the cover of darkness to relieve themselves (McCarthy,2014). Further to this, young girls require adequate facilitates that allow
them to navigate the difficulties of menstruation. This is particularly
pertinent in schools where poor sanitation has been closely correlated with
female attendance (McMahon et al. 2011).
All of these examples
stylize the different ways in which Africans ‘see sanitation’ and help to
expound the importance of accurate research and an engaging dialogue to
understand suitable contextual approaches. To do this, we must peel away these
illusory surface understandings to appreciate the real everyday workings of
practice and feeling. As Black & Fawcett so succinctly surmise, ‘we must
dismantle the last great taboo, and learn to talk about… shit’ (2008:10).
In my next post I will
review some wider policy approaches to tackling awareness and understanding in
the face of the emerging sanitation crisis.
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