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I like this piece, it doesn't shy away (as I often do) from difficult waste-related content. However I still cringed when I read the phrase "faecal sludge"... a reaction which the author hints is a privilege and no doubt it is. Claire Rosen Sultan 695166

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This essay gives a thorough insight into how we might approach the sanitisation crisis in cities of the global south. I found McFarlane's relational approach helpful in drawing an evocative picture of how gender, class etc shape the city, and how concepts of the 'unclean' may be mapped onto whole groups in society (mainly women). I'm suprised that McFarlane did not site Bruno Latour, seen as he mentions "networked problems" and "entanglements". Never the less, the essay drove home the point that context is key so as to not cause more problems than solutions within disparate localities. The problem is clearly not just infrastructural in most cases, but social as well.
683385

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von Schnitzler draws attention to how policies and tech introduced by the State with "sustainable" goals in mind can also cloak other aims. In this case metering water consumption in SA to reduce waste seems very sensible (I think Cape Town recently nearly became the first major city to run completely dry); however, pre-paid water meters are resented as they indicate a lack of trust and she argues the State is attempting to reform and re-train Citizens to behave responsibly by paying for what is used. In Foucauldian terms this is an example of governmentality, biopower and panopticism at work. So, how do we regulate water usage fairly?

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Anand emphasizes that human attempts to tame water are destined to fail as water defies any control:  "Engineering project to control water frequently presume we can rule over it and make its flows predictable, continuous and ordered". It made me think of the Vajont Dam disaster in 1963. The dam was built in an already unstable area in Northern Italy, just a few years after it was completed the water flooded the valley underneath and killed thousand of people.
All warnings were ignored: alarmism did not go well with the economic climate (Italy was in full economic boom), the dam was perceived as a great public project with great benefit to the economy. At the time electricity production was nationalized with large state funding.  The recent flooding in Germany were caused (amongst other reasons) by diverted waterways, dams and the loss of grasslands and wetlands. I wonder about future negotiation between environment preservation and growing population needs in the global South and the possibilities it could open up, perhaps an area of opportunity for more responsible development

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Nigel,
Such a great link to Foucault! I see the panopticon in full swing here!
If the Masakhane campaign- based on civic duties- failed and the Gein'amanzi campaign - based on market exchange/technology- is also not delivering the expected results (although, it depends on which set of values we are measuring the "results" to be delivered)...perhaps there could be a 3rd way where "virtuous" behaviour results in tangible, visible benefit for the community ? Saved water could be redirected to shared use/leisure facilities/wellbeing of the community? Swimming pools for kids/green spaces for public enjoyment (I am aware these examples are simplistic and not appropriate to the local needs, I am just throwing ideas out there about what a shared "benefit" could look like). Also, how can a water conservation drive be credible if the ones using the greatest % of water in the wealthy neighborhoods are not asked to limit their consumption? This links with the McFarlane article where poorest residents need to allocate more resources to get inferior quality water compared to the middle-class residents (p 1250).

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/water-almost-half-million-us-households-lack-indoor-plumbing

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Yan Yu Lin and her seven-year-old daughter live in a tight studio in San Francisco's Chinatown, in a century-old building where 60 or so residents on each floor share a bathroom.

Along the back wall of the room is a plastic potty - the kind designed for toilet training toddlers. The shared bathrooms are out of order so often, so rank and unhygienic, that Lin has her daughter use the plastic potty instead. "It's safer," she said.

This Dickensian-sounding living situation is more common in the US than most would think.

Almost half a million American households lack basic indoor plumbing, with renters and people of color in some of the country's wealthiest and fastest growing cities most likely to be living without running water or flushing toilets, new research reveals.

While some rural and indigenous communities have never had indoor plumbing, the vast majority of unplumbed Americans are in fact found in urban areas, with one in three affected households living in just 15 cities, according to research by the Plumbing Poverty Project (PPP), a collaboration between King's College London (KCL) and the University of Arizona.

Two side-by-side slope graphs, one showing cities where piped water access is worsening, the other improving. In the worsening graph, San Francisco, Portland, Phoenix and Seattle are labelled. In the improving graph, New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Cleveland are labelled.

The full analysis, based on data from annual community surveys by the US Census Bureau, is published today in collaboration with the Guardian as part of our long-running series exposing America's water crisis.

It reveals how so-called plumbing poverty has gotten markedly worse in San Francisco and Portland - two booming ostensibly progressive west coast tech hubs with a growing wealth gap and homelessness crisis.

In San Francisco, which according to Wealth-X has more billionaires than any global city other than New York and Hong Kong, almost 15,000 families live in homes without proper plumbing. Median house prices have tripled since 2000 while the number of families in substandard housing with incomplete plumbing increased by 12%.

3 three groupings of bar charts comparing values between 2000 and 2017. Each grouping is looking at the percentage of residents who lack piped water access in that category. The categories are as follows: all households, renter occupied households, and Black/African American individuals. Each category has shown increases between 2000 and 2017.

Plumbing poverty, like all hardships in the US, is racialized: as of 2017, Black people made up 9% of San Francisco's population but accounted for 17% of households without indoor plumbing.

"The story of plumbing poverty in San Francisco is inextricably tied to unaffordable housing, declining incomes, post-recession transformations in the California rental sector, and racialized wealth gaps, fueled by a kind of 'anti-Black urbanism' that has either driven Black San Franciscans into more precarious housing conditions or out of the Bay entirely," said Katie Meehan, lead researcher of the PPP and professor of environment and society at KCL.

The problem is nationwide.

Even though plumbing poverty appears to have declined in several major cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago over the past two decades, tens of thousands of residents continue to rely on public restrooms, school showers and chamber pots.

In 2017, after a period of sustained economic growth following the Great Recession, at least 28,000 households in New York and 19,000 in LA still lacked basic indoor plumbing. And the progress made could actually be inflated due to the Census Bureau eliminating one of the three survey plumbing questions in 2015.

Meanwhile other cities including Milwaukee, San Antonio, Phoenix, Nashville, Seattle and Cleveland made little or no progress in tackling plumbing poverty between 2000 and 2017. The stagnation reflects a combination of factors including the legacy of historic racist housing policies, decades of underinvestment in water and sanitation infrastructure, and widening income inequalities since the Great Recession.

Table showing "Estimated households without piped water" and "Pct of population" for the top 50 metro areas in the US.

In Phoenix, one of the fastest growing sunbelt cities in the south-west, renters are earning less and paying more to live in homes without running water compared to two decades ago. In 2017, unplumbed renters on average spent 43% of their monthly income on rent compared to 25% in 2000.

Overall, progress to eradicate plumbing poverty remains slow: in 2017, there were still enough Americans living without piped water to fill the nation's seventh-largest city.

"It's not only that the gap between the water-rich and the water-poor is widening in America, it's also that it's driven by a housing sector that lacks any safety net for working families, especially households of color, that cannot afford the astronomical prices of San Francisco, Seattle, or now even Portland," added Meehan.

The PPP white paper, which focuses on the 15 worst cities, is intended as blueprint for lawmakers to tackle gaps in research and infrastructure funding to end plumbing poverty - which is essential if every American household is to one day have access to affordable water and sanitation.

Clean, safe, affordable water and sanitation are essential for human health, economic prosperity and environmental justice. Yet when Covid struck and public health experts recommended regular hand washing to curtail the spread, an estimated quarter of the world's population, 2 billion people, lacked clean running water, while almost half did not have access to proper sanitation, according to UN figures.

While the vast majority live in developing countries, at least 1.1 million people in the US, ostensibly the richest country in the world, also suffer the indignity of living in homes without running water, an indoor shower or bath, or flush toilet - because of incomplete plumbing. An additional 16 million people or so lose access every year when disconnected due to unaffordable, unpaid water bills.

'There was nowhere for me to go'

Before the pandemic, when schools were open for in person classes, Lin's daughter knew to use the toilets before coming home. After schools, businesses and even park amenities closed down, and families without plumbing like Lin's were increasingly forced to rely on bottled water, wipes, potties and commodes.

Lin recalled one occasion last year when she fell ill with an upset stomach and the bathroom on her floor was out of order. She rushed down one floor, but the bathroom was occupied, as was the one on the next floor. "You can imagine how embarrassing that was," she said. "I was ashamed. And I couldn't even clean myself up afterwards - there was nowhere for me to go."

Her landlord usually patches up the problem within a day or two, by pumping out the drains or tightening leaky faucets, but the ancient plumbing keeps giving out, week after week.

The situation is difficult for her to talk about. When she moved to San Francisco from China, Lin never imagined living like this. "When I speak to my dad back home, I try not to give him too many details about my life here," she said. "I don't want to make him upset."

She is not alone. Renters make up fewer than half of households in the San Francisco metro area, but account for almost 90% of its plumbing poverty.

Yet often, those without plumbing spend more on rent than those with running water and flush toilets. In 2017 the average unplumbed renter in San Francisco spent 44% of their monthly income to live in a home without piped running water, while the typical city resident spent 32% on a home with full plumbing.

In other words, renters with incomplete plumbing are a growing subclass in one of the richest and so-called progressive US cities, according to the PPP analysis.

Horizontal bar charts comparing all households with households without piped water. The categories examined include: people of color, renters, mobile home residents, and their median household income. Households without piped water are more likely to be renters, people of color, or mobile home residents. Households without piped access have a median income that is almost $30,0000 less than all households: $33,152.

The new data reinforces earlier findings, including a 2019 report by the non-profit Pacific Institute that estimated 140,000 people in California had incomplete plumbing. The true number is undoubtedly much higher, as excluded from the count were the growing number of Bay Area residents living in mobile homes without water hookups and families who informally rent garage units or sheds.

"Lots of people were using chamber pots," said Laura Feinstein, who co-authored the report.

In cities like San Francisco and New York, the problem is particularly marked in single room occupancy buildings - housing units with shared bathrooms like Lin's, which are concentrated in neighborhoods mostly populated by poor and working class families of color.

Nationwide, plumbing poverty is usually clustered in small pockets, reflecting historical racist housing and infrastructure policies which have long discriminated against communities of color and tribes.

"It's a confluence of forces and the underlying causes will depend on where you live, but the social safety net - including infrastructure spending - being hollowed out over the last 40 to 50 years, has impacted people everywhere. The role of race and structural racism is enormous," said Stephen Gasteyer, associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University who researches water access.

Overall, federal funding for water and wastewater infrastructure has declined steadily since its peak in 1977, making it harder for underserved communities to get financial support to build and maintain systems.

As investment stagnated, new problems converged with old ones. In addition to installing indoor plumbing in homes across the country, millions of lead lines still need to be replaced, meanwhile new contaminants like PFAS and microplastics have emerged as significant health hazards.

"It's solvable, but we've spent decades creating this crisis so getting out of it will take some time, money and creativity to rethink how we do infrastructure so that we can deal with emerging contaminants and deliver affordable water to everyone," said Gasteyer.

The Bipartisan Plan that passed the Senate included $48.4bn - less than half what Biden proposed - for water programs over five years, including $15bn for lead and $15bn for PFAS, as well as $3.5bn for sanitation projects on indigenous lands.

It's simply not enough, and means millions of Americans will continue to live without clean, safe affordable water for years to come.

Until recently Rosa Ramiréz and her two daughters lived in a studio apartment without a working bathroom in San Francisco's Mission District, a historically working class Latino neighborhood that has rapidly gentrified, sending rents sky high. The sink spewed yellow colored water, and the toilet wasn't properly connected to the building's plumbing system. Ramiréz's rent was $2,300 a month.

For two years, whenever she and her daughters needed to use the toilet or wash up, they relied on restrooms at the local donut shop, cafe or taqueria.

When the pandemic hit, the situation became untenable. With schools shut down, her daughters aged eight and 15 could no longer use the facilities on campus. "It was unbearable," said Ramiréz, 49, who works as a cleaner. "The hardest part was when one of us had a stomach ache and none of the restaurants wanted to lend me their restroom."

The landlord refused to fix the bathroom, and it took months for Ramirez to find another studio as rents have become so unaffordable in the neighborhood. "It has been increasingly difficult to live here," said Ramiréz. "The conditions now are inhumane."

This article includes content provided by Scribd. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.

This article was amended on 28 September 2021 to attribute Wealth-X as the source of research into global billionaire cities, and to remove a photograph of the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago, which was largely demolished by 2011.

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Almost half a million US households lack indoor plumbing: 'The conditions are inhumane'

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Yan Yu Lin and her seven-year-old daughter live in a tight studio in San Francisco's Chinatown, in a century-old building where 60 or so residents on each floor share a bathroom. Along the back wall of the room is a plastic potty - the kind designed for toilet training toddlers.

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Saudi-based Almarai owns 15,000 acres of an irrigated valley – but what business does a foreign food production company have drawing resources from a US desert

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia

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Who keeps buying California's scarce water? Saudi Arabia

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Saudi-based Almarai owns 15,000 acres of an irrigated valley - but what business does a foreign food production company have drawing resources from a US desert?

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The conflation of the right to sanitation and the ‘right to the city’ made by Mcfarlane here was profound, especially because of the way that inequalities converging around axes of gender, class, race and other social categories was elucidated. This focus on sanitation and infrastructure challenges in the Global South made me reflect more deeply on contexts in the Global North, such as the racialised water politics of Flint, Michigan, or even, closer to home, the struggles of transgender people to access gender-affirming toilets in public spaces.

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I liked the essay I thought it had a realistic touch it to it - from explaining the issues to suggesting possible solutions.

Personally, the reading also showed sanitation in a new light, as the "right to city life" and also relating it to density in a community which I would have not thought of before. 695002.

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In response to 683385 I agree - I mostly saw sanitation as an infrastructural issue but I think seeing it from a networked problem takes the issue into deeper understanding of the many stakeholders that are involved & then thinking about how the issue may be resolved in a more practical sense. 695002.

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I enjoyed reading this essay. I thought it demonstrated the multifaceted nature of sanitation. How inequalities are intimately connected to who can access sanitation services, specifically with regard to women and female violence. How in some countries and cultures the female body is thought of as polluted.

The intrinsic cultural attitudes towards sanitation and the urbanisation of cities is an area that I find really interesting.

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I was slightly taken aback whilst reading McFarlane’s article. I’ve seen waves of rubbish and horrific hygienic conditions in urban ‘developing’ cities on TV and media, but I’ve never read anything so in-depth about how crucial sanitation is to urban life and the cities, and citizens, identity. It was so interesting looking through this sanitation lens and its relationship with class struggle, exploitation, community discrimination, the inequalities of health, age, gender, religion, and caste. I’d never thought of sanitation as such a distinct means of politics. What struck me the most was the notion that people are looked down upon as being dirty, even though there is no ability to clean oneself in the city. This concept can be applied universally. People claiming benefits are looked down upon, even if there is no suitable employment available for them in the city (disability, care responsibilities, criminal record….). I ask my classmates to try and make other comparisons.

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I like how they addressed the fact that the sanitation crisis is a very gendered issue as I feel like this can often be ignored in the debate. In my opinion, they successfully presented how local relations to infrastructure are often insensitive to gender, class and people’s backgrounds. 694871

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I found Schnitzler’s argument that the water meter delivers moral behaviour as well as water to be fascinating. What we would normally just view as a basic object is given agency, the ability to construct and contest citizenship. A modern example in the UK could be the governments push to install thousands of heat pumps into homes, in a move away from fossil fuel heating. However, they are more expensive than gas boilers and operate on running costs. Therefore this new technology will also represent a larger space of citizenship in the UK, and encompass those who can and can’t afford to adapt to the green technological advancement.

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The thing I found most interesting about this reading was Anand's illustration of how 'hydraulic citizenship emerges through diverse articulations between the technologies of politics (enabled by laws, plans, politicians, patrons, and social workers) and the politics of technology (enabled by the peculiar and situated forms of plumbing, pipes, and pumps)'. Social relations are entangled with the infrastructure, in its ever-changing form, as well as the qualities of water itself, produces a complex situation that cannot be controlled by the central authority. Thinking of the materiality of the infrastructure as a relationship between human and non-human elements reminded me of week 3 readings and a comparison between differences in the physical qualities of coal and oil that influenced the broader materiality of their infrastructural and political development.

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You raise a very important point Nigel. I think von Schnitzler could have addressed the reduction of water consumption as a critical issue in South Africa (though perhaps in 2008 this was less pressing) and mentioned alternative strategies. However I feel the article is correct in seeing the pre-paid meters as a political technology, a tool of disciplinary neoliberalism in the context of a post-apartheid society. Perhaps more attention could have been given to the incentive to reduce costs for the utility companies, with a stronger link to the privatisation and opportunity for profit that is mentioned at the end of the article. However, the pedagogical aspect of the implementation of this technology in the post-apartheid environment applies in the main to notions of citizenship rather than the extraction of payments.

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I really found this piece interesting because I had never thought to look at sanitation so deeply through the lens of exploitation, gender, class, space, things etc. I thought it was interesting how he 'peopled' urban sanitation. I never thought to look the cultural attitudes towards sanitation.
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Like George I found the bit on the link between the infrastructure, social relations and citizenship fascinating. It made me think of the different ways in which substantive citizenship can be denied to different, especially marginalised groups of people.
(695001)

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This article has articulated very well the situation of the use of utilities in South Africa and the problematic question of who bears the cost. This is not limited to South Africa but many countries in Africa, Ghana included. The author explained the implications of the prepaid meters to the lives of the people living in those communities but I think the people should also be ready to bear some responsibilities. The government only resorted to the prepaid meters after the people refused to heed to the call for everyone to play his or her role in the economy. People wanted their rights to be protected but are not willing to bear their responsibilities. This is a real issue in most of the African countries I have visited.

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This piece strengthen the argument that public goods procurement is subjected and invested in political content, and technological aspect whenever possible underpins the politization. It is important to see the history of public planning to understand the motive of government and identify its political trajectories through public procurement projects. The neo-liberalism may disguise as a public goods projects by having some political actors involved in the planning and implementation of the projects.

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I second this comment about this article bringing the cultural nuance into sanitation issue. After reading this, I feel sanitation is having much more impact to social life than we thought. A proper sanitation may create a healthier people, both physical and emotional thus could make human wiser and better in shaping the anthropocene, establishing more profound interconnection with nature and environment.

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I was struck the depth of this piece and was really interested in the gendered aspect of sanitation. The one thing I struggled to understand was what McFarlane meant when the word "symbolic" was used throughout the piece.

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I agree as well.  Much of political jockying for votes is framed around providing access to/the rights to particular pieces of infrastructure.  Depending on what the voting populace needs/what a society values most these might be objects(sanitation infrastructure, toilets and water), or idealogical "freedoms" like the freedom over ones body like we see in the US in relationship to vaccine mandates and/or abortion rights(weird convoluted relationship there that requires more complexity).  In the case of the neoliberal state, the US had wide-ranging social welfare programs after World War II which included strong unions and social security. Essentially, neoliberalism has systematically destroyed those systems and now we see politicians jockying to get us back things that we already had before they let corporations take the reign.

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I enjoy reading this piece of work. It once more reminded me of how human society is tightly around two core notions, the "concept" and the "power".  The state is not only a utility provider but also an organization made of regular people. And it is also an embodiment of power, that is how the resources should be allocated. The infrastructure construction is not only decided by rational and scientific analysis. But more importantly, it is about how the people think of different regions and how the related parties interact.

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I enjoy reading this piece of work. It once more reminded me of how human society is tightly around two core notions, the "concept" and the "power".  The state is not only a utility provider but also an organization made of regular people. And it is also an embodiment of power, that is how the resources should be allocated. The infrastructure construction is not only decided by rational and scientific analysis. But more importantly, it is about how the people think of different regions and how the related parties interact.

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Wang Jiageng 694929

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Interesting. On the contrast, a few years ago, the Chinese government pushed a policy of gas energy replacing fuel energy of winter heating in northen China. However, the expense of gas is more expensive than fuel and it was a burden to regular rural Chinese homes. So yes, it represented an ability to construct and contest citizenship.
Wang Jiageng 694929

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Anand’s exposition of ‘Hydraulic Citizenship’ is a vivid depiction of the ghettoised lives that composite urban spaces. Having lived the realities of Mumbai’s infrastructure and water politics, I have known that it has always been political in nature and in favour of those who comply with and fit into the agendas of the majoritarian beliefs. Anand writes that “Residents understand that their access to water services is both productive and reflective of their relationship to state institutions.” For those who cannot contribute ‘meaningfully, productively and agreeably’, there is little to no substantiveness. The concept of Hydraulic Citizenship is one of the various ways in which I am learning to see how people’s lives in neoliberal agendas and policies are constantly in a cycle of commercial exchange and functions through the fear of abjection. (Comment posted by Kavita Natarajan; SOAS ID 694599)

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Anand’s exposition of ‘Hydraulic Citizenship’ is a vivid depiction of the ghettoised lives that composite urban spaces. Having lived the realities of Mumbai’s infrastructure and water politics, I have known that it has always been political in nature and in favour of those who comply with and fit into the agendas of the majoritarian beliefs. Anand writes that “Residents understand that their access to water services is both productive and reflective of their relationship to state institutions.” For those who cannot contribute ‘meaningfully, productively and agreeably’, there is little to no substantiveness. The concept of Hydraulic Citizenship is one of the various ways in which I am learning to see how people’s lives in neoliberal agendas and policies are constantly in a cycle of commercial exchange and functions through the fear of abjection. (Comment posted by Kavita Natarajan; SOAS ID 694599)

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I wonder what it must have been like to read ethnography about a place where you once lived. I can imagine it was really difficult at times, but also really resonating. Claire 695166

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I think you have brought up a very important point about the politics of the adoption of 'sustainability-focused' technologies. It will be interesting to witness how the 'nudge' will come about to create citizens of tomorrow who, as the writer says, will successfully perform the "ethic that fuses civic duty and entrepreneurial comportment". (Comment posted by Kavita Natarajan; SOAS ID 694599)

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The part within this reading that struck me the most was how the implementation of the prepaid water meter caused daily behavioural changes within the community. The implementation is advocated as something that is beneficial for society, and even sustainable, when from another angle it has heavily changed the livelihoods of the people there, and seems to develop an anxiety instead of the freedom that the campaign promises.
The part within this reading that struck me the most was how the implementation of the prepaid water meter caused daily behavioural changes within the community. The implementation is advocated as something that is beneficial for society, and even sustainable, when from another angle it has heavily changed the livelihoods of the people there, and seems to develop an anxiety instead of the freedom that the campaign promises.

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Elena's reference to the McFarlane article is useful and accurate: class shapes cities and how we use them, allowing only a certain group of people to be 'virtuous' and 'responsible'. It's easier for people with more money to be more responsible. The link to Foucault is spot on too, judgement being deployed from a centralised locality of power...
683385

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I agree, it was interesting to see the paradoxical nature of sanitation in the Global South – as you said, those who were viewed as inherently ‘dirty’ do not have the means or ability to ‘cleanse’ themselves. It begs to question how one may even begin to break out of this paradoxical circle. Does the answer begin with infrastructural changes, or cultural changes etc? (Roshni 637370)

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I liked this article, it made me re-think further into the crisis of waste in cities and sanitation -and what sanitation really means in the context of the city. Bringing with it, questions of gender, culture, place, space, politics, and class. Sanitation has multiple meanings, and it is different for everyone. People see sanitation in different ways - ways of which are particularly dependant on ones social, economic and political context.

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This piece offered a nuanced lens through which to discuss the sanitation crisis. The author offers distinctly different conceptions of sanitation in urban spaces 'seen' through different contexts. Most powerfully for me, was McFarlane's claim that 'women bear the burden of inadequate sanitation' within a violent gendered dimension of sanitation and further, the experience of the city. In this sense, the piece offers an interesting avenue for investigating gender inequality in the city space and how sanitation as a basic and fundamental human right is a catalyst for further inequality between genders. I'm thinking particularly of gender divides in education due to girls missing school when menstruating both for lack of sanitation and even more so the stigma of women bodies during menstruation and how this is exacerbated by lack of access to sanitation. I believe Catherine did some work on sanitation in schools if I remember correctly?

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This one is probably one of my favorite essays for this week. The author depicts lots of everyday experience and stories going on in Mumbai. Through the essay, we can see that between the state and the residents, there are officials from different parts of the government, engineers and plumbers. Every one of them can have a great influence on the final outcome of the water distribution. For example, plumbers acting the role as a middleman, make profits by doing illegal tapping for residents. Their preference for illegal connection shows not only the redundancy of bureaucracy but also the everyday discrimination generated through the social histories.

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More generally - The growing privatisation of the water supply alongside the increasing polluting of the natural water supply is deeply worrying. Especially in the case where technology such as pre-paid meters are enforced........the control and power to then switch off supply allowing it to be used for coercive means; escalating costs and an essential resource may end up in the hands of a very few people ou of the control of local people and systems of governance.
696134

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I was thinking about if privatization really could help solve the problem? Cuz back in China, we now see similar things happen in domains like medical care and education. People are spending more money in order to send their kids to the private schools to receive a better education. The same thing is also happening in medical care and other places. People are charged with more money to get the so called betterment. Should this burden be wholly placed on individuals and families? 695184 Tingting Ye

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This article reminded me of our readings on the carbon economy and the exploitation of natural resources as a tool to further marginalise and, it could be argued, to control vulnerable populations.

Separately, I found the question of liberty and duty the author raised very interesting. I'm curious to see what others think about this: do you believe that with liberty and rights comes duty and responsibilities? Can we really call these 'rights' when they come with conditions? And if so, should water access really be included into this when it is essential and cannot be substituted with another resource?

685469

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I found this article extremely interesting not only in its description of the privatization of water in South Africa and prepaid meters as a political tool, but also in its connection of neoliberalism and citizenship. I thought the connection between Hayeks 'discipline of freedom' theory (‘it was only through the force of circumstances that he (man)
could be made to behave economically") and the impact of prepaid meters on household water use and livelihood was made very clear. The larger implications of calculative agency were also presented, in how the rise in neoliberalism has increased the need to calculating the economic cost/benefit of 'natural' resources, such as water.

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I agree the articles reflection of sanitation as a network issue rather than strictly infrastructure issue helped me connect it to a global north context. I think the author is correct when stating the rising issue of urban sanitation in the global south is often assessed strictly has a lack of infrastructure, without detailing the networks that are at play in the localization of infrastructure problems. The genderization of sanitation was also a topic I was unfamiliar with and it was interesting to read about.

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This piece does a good job of framing the way that "technical objects are injected with capacities, agencies and morals that in turn make redundant, constrain or elicit particular forms of agency and subjectivity". What I believe we are looking at here is what subject making and governmentality look like early on in the state-making process in South Africa immediately post apartheid. Governments and corporations must start with building infrastructure that paint particular segments of society into specific roles, bring people into the formal economy and encourage individual "rational actors" and groups within the economy to embody particular character traits beneficial to the state-making process

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Hello Jane. I agree with you, Von Schnitzler's article highlights that agency is given to infrastructure. Infrastructure is intertwined with social divisions and hierarchies in Race, class, gender and ethnicity. Infrastructure itself embodies discursive power as its existence and implementation challenges particular human interactions and defines societal structures. Eliza 686948

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Like others here, I was really interested in the notion of "sustainable" infrastructure measures that actually have a veiled and more nefarious objective.

Limiting consumption is an important aspect of sustainability, but under an infrastructure system that allocates based on societal biases and along exclusionary lines, requiring those on the bottom of that hierarchy to reduce or pay almost weaponises sustainability measures.

Reminds me a bit of how in California, many struggle with drought year after year and yet golf courses always have all the water they need to keep the grass green in the dry heat.

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RESPONSE TO GEORGE 677207 Likewise, I was reminded of week 3, in particular Rolston's idea that material environments can have agentic capabilities. In Anand, water takes on similar properties that no central human agent can control

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In response to Tingting Ye, I agree that privatisation can cause more problems, creating a bigger wedge in society that exasperates inequality. Thanks for providing the example of how you've seen this happen in China - it's helpful to see it in different contexts. Amy, 694871

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I also have to agree with many of my fellow students that this reading really made me think of water/infrastructure/sanitation in a more anthropological way and highlighted the interconnectedness of MacFarlane’s five key dimensions.  I just wonder if we have gone too far, water is such a huge commodity in the Global North, are we able to get to a place where sanitation is a ‘rights-based agenda’, and available for all?

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Fully agree, it is interesting that something that seems "practical" is actually the result of a series of social calculations.

I also agree that it can be applied universally, humans justify their biases citing a tangible reason, for example blaming people for being dirty or unemployed, but really they're put in that position by a society who doesn't deem them worthy of it in the first place.

I think it was much clearer when sanitation tech was worse, looking at 1800's London. The factory labour class was practically drowning in waste and very much viewed as poor and dirty as if its entirely unrelated to those conditions they were forced to live in.

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I found the distinction made between ‘shouting’ and ‘complaining’ by Anand’s interlocutor Patankar to further highlight the commodification of water. It seems only if the Premnagar residents follow, and abide by, the capitalist systems of control placed on and around water are they allowed to have an opinion on it.

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I agree with your point about how citizens are ‘made’ specifically with nation-building in mind. I was really stuck by how the calculative space goes further than producing a new form of citizenship… “calculativeness becomes an essential attribute of being human”. I wonder how new forms of resistance may emerge in these conditions, given that the pre-payment system close down opportunities for people to interact with the state. Perhaps mutual aid, community relations can strengthen.. could the people become a form of infrastructure?

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I thought this reading was really interesting in how it truly shows all of the different factors that affect and are affected by sanitation. I liked McFarlane’s phrasing on sanitation being “peopled”. I found particularly interesting his description of how gender, class, race and people’s backgrounds can impact differently their access to sanitation infrastructure. (695224)

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I agree with Jake on how it is strikingly applicable how people project blame onto those who are disadvantaged in society in any way, such as people claiming benefits as he mentioned. I think it is a means to distance themselves and reassure themselves that they are different from people who have 'failed' or bring up feelings of disgust as discussed in the article. It made me also think of a recent debate I'd happened to read, about attitudes towards people in council housing who choose to keep living there after the 'need' begins to go away, and are viewed negatively for doing so. But this very idea of throwing people out just as they begin to be able to walk again, denying the ability to lay roots or imagine and inhabit a future, is dehumanising and unrealistic, and I don't think it would be possible without that process of distancing oneself categorically that is so central to exclusion. (676013)

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I thought this article was a really illuminating read! As mentioned above by a few of my other classmates, it 'peopled urban sanitation' like 695001 aptly put it. It makes me appreciate the value of insightful qualitative research having the potential to perceive and communicate injustices that often go without notice, or are misattributed. It reminded me, as a sidetone, of learning unexpectedly - I came across this while going through project reports during an internship - how many young girls in developing countries end up dropping out of school once they begin their menstrual cycles often solely due to lack to access to sanitation provisions like water and toilets in schools. (676013)

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This article seemed to be a good transition from the politics of the city to the theme of 'Public Goods'. The article perfectly encapsulates the ways in which the idea of 'accumulation by dispossession' transfers to the supply of water. Moreover, the informal, illegal connections are quite illustrative to the ways in which  urban infrastructure refines our relation to public goods. A profession like plumbing suddenly comes to be an integral part of the informal appropriation of public services.

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https://www.corecities.com/about-us/what-core-cities

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We are a unique and united voice for the UK’s eleven core cities

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I fully agree with what you wrote. This article really shows how public infrastructures are never neutral. On the contrary, they are the result of socio historical processes that has inadequately included and excluded certain groups of people. There is a profound urge to deconstruct certain dominant narratives around the public sphere and reconstructing it whilst including this time the people that have initially been excluded. Moreover, I believe that this perpetual for gender-neutral public spaces is inherently linked to a re-conceptualisation of what a 'public good' is in the first place.

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McFarlane paints a very vivid picture of the problems and different experience surrounding the sanitization. It puts readers (like me) in an uncomfortable chair to face the issues surrounding sanitization that exists in other parts of the world. I especially like that he brings readers to think deeper about urban sanitization as a network that relates to politics, economic, and infrastructure aspects of our society and highlighting that the human body is the site where urban sanitization is more powerfully felt while being profoundly shaped by processes external to it. Women and children, as pointed out by McFarlane, are the ones who a most affected and worst protected in sanitization issues in India, thus bringing attention to the bigger question of how sanitization is influenced and governed by those in power.

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Water governance was in the spotlight when Malaysia’s wealthiest state wanted to restructure the water industry and de-privatise the sector from concessionaires to ensure that the price of water remains low. Took years before the restructuring finally took place (at a higher cost to the state government) and the restructuring move became a political tool that eventually ‘justified’ the removal of the state’s chief minister. [696247]

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Sanitation issues knock on effects - Catherine has studied this in relation to menstruation and education. can't find link to her thesis but https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/female-empowerment-managing-menstrual-sanitation-by-catherine-dolan-et-al-2018-04?barrier=accesspaylog

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In many societies, a woman's period is a topic shrouded in euphemism and secrecy, owing to communal beliefs that can leave girls and women feeling embarrassed, isolated, and insecure. When this is combined with lack of access to sanitary products, or to safe, private places to use them, the results can be socially and emotionally devastating.

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Demystifying Menstruation | by Catherine Dolan, Julie Hennegan and Gabby Edlin - Project Syndicate

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In many societies, a woman's period is a topic shrouded in euphemism and secrecy, owing to communal beliefs that can leave girls and women feeling embarrassed, isolated, and insecure. When this is combined with lack of access to sanitary products, or to safe, private places to use them, the results can be socially and emotionally devastating.

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von Schnitzer's piece brought to light another aspect of the financialization of daily life or the individual. Not only is calculability given more emphasis than some kind of 'public good', but the individual is quite literally giving credit to the water board by pre-paying. The physical infrastructure could be seen to then include the people rather than just serve the people.

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Anand talks about the water crisis and that humans have no chance of controlling it because water is uncontrollable. I am from Saudi Arabia, and I related with this piece because we had a few cases in Saudi Arabia, especially in the western region, where our draining system was not built and maintained properly, so every time it would rain, it would flood. The water would just flood the streets and it was a huge safety concern as well. I agree with Anand with the fact that water is uncontrollable. (695995)

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It must be very interesting reading the article from your point of view being have lived there! Your point on water politics also got me thinking about my home country. (695995)

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the introduction of this work reminds me of the 'bare life' of Homo Sacer, 'a conception of life in which the sheer biological fact of life is given priority over the way a life is lived'. The people living in the marginal groups may not be defined the citizens of the city since they were 'forgotten' by their government about their rights of the urban infrastructures.

Also, I was impressed by the conversations, 'if we don't have water, what's the use of this?" it connected last week's topic, the politics of the city, and reminded me the ironic fact about urban  'beautification' .

but it seemed strange to pay attention to water problem when people living in Meghwadi already had almost everything they needed to live a decent life. Maybe thinking of what a 'slum' life should be, or taking their shabby life as granted, was a prestigious perspective at all! Of course everyone should have the rights to live a decent life!

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Since nobody mentioned it, I must admit that I doesn't like this article as the others, not because of the content, but the way McFarlane wrote about it.

For one thing, from the beginning of this article, I was not convincing about the five themes he picked. why this five themes instead of others? But McFarlane gave little explanations except it was a result of 'extensive reading & research". it's not convincing. at least he should provided more details about the readings.

Another thing is that he depicted people using 'they' instead of 'he/she', making people cardboard person. It's not like reading ethnography but reading some reports from the government. it gave me the feeling that he gave some background of each type of person but none of them were in details.

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Really enjoyed this piece, particularly the quote at the beginning concerning the irony of the commodification of essential natural resources: 'who knows tomorrow we'll have to prepay for the sun to be switched on and off'. I think that neoliberal structuring of infrastructure provision also speaks to a broader theme within the anthropological sustainability discourse of earth systems/life systems/life itself being capitalised - and thus many proposed 'sustainable' solutions being slightly greener versions of the exploitative capitalist ones already in place?

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Liked your description of the state as an embodiment of power here.
I was struck by the repeating theme that states, and statehood in itself seems obligated to justify itself via it's position as the 'provider' of services... even when in reality these are often privatised. It made me wonder whether with ever increasing privatisation the state itself may lose coherence as an entity of power, while the MNCs providing particularly basic services may move in to fill some of that void to a degree?

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I have to echo Jake's comment about being taken about by McFarlane's article. It caused me to reflect on the taboo and uncomfortable conversations around sanitation/waste/periods. Such everyday realities that we have no control over and are so inherently human. It seems that it is a privilege to not speak about these things if your life provides you the infrastructure from which to do so.

The part of the article in particular that made this sentiment hit home was when McFarlane spoke of the violence women experience as part of the sanitation crisis in the context of Mumbai. Women cannot safely access toilets in public without risking rape/harrassment reflecting the "gendered nature of infrastructure provision in the city ... and who should be using public space".

Ciara 687345

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Wisam Abughoush 675479Penny Harvey & Hannah Knox

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Wisam Abughoush 675479Penny Harvey & Hannah Knox

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Penny Harvey & Hannah Knox/The Enchantments of Infrastructure draws attention to the promises associated with building roads since roads are not only material forms but are have the intangible forms which might be called the Enchantment or the promises that these roads carry about the  future .Although the promises towards  future is  uncertain and unclear as mentioned by Moran (2009).
The paper discussed the case of the Peruvian roads and the
three promises associated with the material forms of Peruvian roads
1. The promise of speed and connectivity
2. The promise of political freedom
3. The promise of economic prosperity.

The three promises associated with roads are basically illusion and non of these promises was attained on the real level but only on shallow and superficial level .
The paper talks about the social promise and engage infrastructural relations as moments of enchantment in the way infrastructures mainly roads in this study have powerful affects of social promise.

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I find this article very interesting and important in relation to the anthropology of sustainability and anthropology in general .This made me rethink the sanitation and waste problems and understand the politics of the city from observing sanitation and cleaned roads and neighborhoods versus other neighborhood.How the power control effects who has access to get sanitation and who doesn't .Also ,in conflict areas you will see that the areas left without political solutions like in Palestine are the most effected .

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I find it fascinating that informality is a ground of political act for migrant citizenship and urban rights in Mumbai. This resonates with the situation in Vietnam. Sen 694624

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I find it fascinating that informality is a ground of political act for migrant citizenship and urban rights in Mumbai. This resonates with the situation in Vietnam. Sen 694624