Excremental Politics

Human waste has been politicised in a myriad of ways and sanitation is increasingly pertinent to discussions on urban poverty and informal settlements across the global South. For some contextual insight, the paradox of modernity is the shocking reality that pervades a lot of Sub-Saharan Africa, whereby more people have access to a mobile phone than to a safe toilet (Global Citizen). It is useful to unpack sanitation on a quotidian level, 'sanitation' being reliant on governments and referring to hardware infrastructure, whilst 'hygiene' is more individualised and dependant on the availability of soap and water, as well as cultural practices that influence cleanliness. Mcfarlane and Silver refer to sanitation as 'a networked problem' (2017, 125) whereby aspects such as cultural politics, resource distribution, every day habits and political capacity are all inextricably linked.

One potent example of the politicised nature of urban sanitation is the 'poo protests' that took place in Cape Town, South Africa in 2013. This affair was a collective disturbance organised to alert the municipalities, and in effect the world, of a lack of infrastructure available to them that facilitates dignified excretion, the unsanitary conditions of the shared toilets, and the inefficient collection of human waste. It is argued that 'urban municipalities are often ill-equipped to deal with rapid urbanisation and associated demand for basic services' (Davis, 2006)* which evokes a question of who is ultimately responsible for those entering cities? dealing with the foundations for this urban management is not always straight forward, especially as it occurs against the backdrop of a global decarbonising imperative. Not strikingly, urban geographer Chalfin notes that in communities in Mahean, Ghana, it is through sanitary facilities and cleanliness that the relationship between citizens and authorities could be strengthened (Chalfin, 2014: 98).

In comparison to other development sectors such as health and education, past funding for sanitation has been relatively low and has, to all appearances, remained an afterthought. It seems that bottom up sanitation has been a novel and constructive approach to effectuating mobilisation from below, by taking sanitation to be a basic human right and placing emphasis on access to safe and functional facilities (as do the Sustainable Development Goals), presenting it as a matter of dignity and necessity rather than ignoring the more nuanced issues or subsuming them under the category of 'water', we seem to be moving forward in the right direction.

The toilet, since urban sanitation has increasingly been recognised as a pressing global issue, has become an illustrative device in addressing the sanitation crisis. It  now acts as a development apparatus both materially and symbolically as well as embodying a humanitarian object. Initiatives such as World Toilet Day (as discussed in a precedent blog) serve to eliminate the taboos that exist around sanitation and open up discussions about peeing and pooing that some may still consider to be unmentionable. The 'Ikotoilet' is a franchise model that has been developed in Sub-Saharan Africa as an innovative answer to the mobile toilet (Ikotoilet) and was designed as a way of thinking beyond toilets but also about communities, serving to dissipate the notion of the toilet and the space around it as unpleasant and dirty by maintaining its cleanliness, installing things such as ATMs or shoeshiners around it, and encouraging it as a sort of social hub. 

Toilets can, however, be used as a tool of power and sometimes exploitation, for example landlords of informal housing not building toilets as they do not take it to be their responsibility. Another example being that people are often forced to pay augmented prices to access latrines relative to their wealth. This phenomenon is known as the poverty penalty, where poorer consumers 'face prices that are higher than those offered to non-poor consumers for a similar good or service' (Mendoza, 2011: 2) another way in which toilets can serve as a device for exploitation.

In sum, the political dimension to the sanitation crisis is intricate and a multitude of players are involved, there remains a long way to go until sanitation and hygiene is not labelled in terms of negation and the urban poor and authorities reach harmonious agreements on the subject of human waste.

*Davis, M. (2006) Planet of Slums, London, Verso