Citizenshit: The Right to Flush and the Urban Sanitation Imaginary

• DOI: 10.1068/a130331p
• Publication Date: 2014-12-09T17:02:23Z
• Authors: Margaret del Carm...; Leila Harris; Gunilla Öberg
• Keywords: Shit; The Imaginary; Toilet; Open defecation; Rainwater Harvesting

For many in the Global North, urban life means that your shit is not problem. We postulate a possible reason for global sanitation failure areas disconnect between expectations—what we term imaginary—and practices required by proposed solutions. The case study presented here based on interviews with residents of Villa Lamadrid, marginalized neighborhood Buenos Aires, Argentina, which faces significant public health impacts from an inadequate sewage management system. solicited feedback regarding specific technologies frequently prescribed poor communities—among them urine diversion dry toilet dehydration vaults. Even as this system posited ‘sustainable’ context Lamadrid terms ecological and economic factors, conversations revealed why option might be sustainable social expectations. On basis community members have defined four aspects residents' imaginaries consider highly relevant any consideration solutions context: (1) citizen does engage physically or mentally their its management; (2) appropriate requires flushing; (3) systems require user's engagement signify rural, underdeveloped, backward lifestyles; (4) state responsibility, local one. Highlighting imaginary methodologically analytically goes beyond discussion culturally contextually technologies. It examines linkages user expectations notions citizenship modernity. Ultimately it also draws attention to sociopolitical dynamics environmental justice issues embedded discussions hygiene. While some our results are context, research more generally suggests need reframe interventions, particularly underserved impoverished areas.