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Informal Urban Sanitation: Everyday Life, Poverty, and Comparison

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  • Colin McFarlane
  • Renu Desai
  • Steve Graham

Abstract

The global sanitation crisis is rapidly urbanizing, but how is sanitation produced and sustained in informal settlements? Although there are data available on aggregate statistics, relatively little is known about how sanitation is created, maintained, threatened, and contested within informal settlements. Drawing on an ethnography of two very different informal settlements in Mumbai, this study identifies key ways in which informal sanitation is produced, rendered vulnerable, and politicized. In particular, four informal urban sanitation processes are examined: patronage, self-managed processes, solidarity and exclusion, and open defecation. The article also considers the implications for a research agenda around informal urban sanitation, emphasizing in particular the potential of a comparative approach, and examines the possibilities for better sanitation conditions in Mumbai and beyond.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin McFarlane & Renu Desai & Steve Graham, 2014. "Informal Urban Sanitation: Everyday Life, Poverty, and Comparison," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 104(5), pages 989-1011, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:104:y:2014:i:5:p:989-1011
    DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2014.923718
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ker-hsuan Chien, 2019. "Polarizing informality: Processual thinking, materiality and the emerging middle-class informality in Taipei," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(6), pages 1225-1241, September.
    2. Jennifer Robinson, 2022. "Introduction: Generating concepts of ‘the urban’ through comparative practice," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1521-1535, June.
    3. Tara van Dijk & Amita Bhide & Vinay Shivtare, 2016. "When a participatory slum sanitation project encounters urban informality: The case of the Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Region," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 45-59, March.
    4. Mary Lawhon & David Nilsson & Jonathan Silver & Henrik Ernstson & Shuaib Lwasa, 2018. "Thinking through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 720-732, March.
    5. Gimelli, Francesco M. & Bos, Joannette J. & Rogers, Briony C., 2018. "Fostering equity and wellbeing through water: A reinterpretation of the goal of securing access," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-9.
    6. Samantha C Winter & Lena Moraa Obara & Sarah McMahon, 2020. "Intimate partner violence: A key correlate of women’s physical and mental health in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-18, April.
    7. Fran Tonkiss, 2015. "Afterword: Economies of infrastructure," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2-3), pages 384-391, June.
    8. Liza Rose Cirolia & Suraya Scheba, 2019. "Towards a multi-scalar reading of informality in Delft, South Africa: Weaving the ‘everyday’ with wider structural tracings," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 594-611, February.
    9. Andrew Rumbach & Manish Shirgaokar, 2017. "Predictors of household exposure to monsoon rain hazards in informal settlements," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 85(2), pages 709-728, January.
    10. Idalina Baptista, 2019. "Electricity services always in the making: Informality and the work of infrastructure maintenance and repair in an African city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 510-525, February.
    11. Shaun Smith, 2019. "Hybrid networks, everyday life and social control: Electricity access in urban Kenya," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(6), pages 1250-1266, May.
    12. Anant Maringanti & Indivar Jonnalagadda, 2015. "Rent gap, fluid infrastructure and population excess in a gentrifying neighbourhood," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2-3), pages 365-374, June.
    13. Patrick Ronoh & Claire Furlong & Frank Kansiime & Richard Mugambe & Damir Brdjanovic, 2020. "Are There Seasonal Variations in Faecal Contamination of Exposure Pathways? An Assessment in a Low–Income Settlement in Uganda," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-19, September.
    14. Kathleen O’Reilly & Richa Dhanju & Elizabeth Louis, 2017. "Subjected to Sanitation: Caste Relations and Sanitation Adoption in Rural Tamil Nadu," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(11), pages 1915-1928, November.
    15. Michele Lancione & Colin McFarlane, 2016. "Life at the urban margins: Sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2402-2421, December.

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