Container based sanitation as infrastructural citizenship: a case study on women's lived Experiences in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

Abstract

Container-Based Sanitation (CBS) is one form of off-grid sanitation service framed as an effective sanitation solution for areas that do not have sewered sanitation. However, there is a gap in understanding the qualitative experiences of CBS users, especially from the individual's perspective. Publications on CBS services focus on its technical or economic feasibility, with little focus on how users experience CBS in their everyday lives. This research is imperative as it addresses the qualitative lived experiences of women in accessing off-grid sanitation solutions, specifically CBS, thereby addressing a critical gap that has been overlooked in previous research. This research critically engages with two key theoretical frameworks, infrastructural citizenship by Lemanski (2019; 2020a; 2020b) and intersectionality by Crenshaw (1989), to demonstrate how gender intersects with other social identities to inform women’s experiences of CBS sanitation in Khayelitsha, and how these lived experiences reflect the complexities of women’s infrastructural citizenship. This study employed photovoice as a qualitative research methodology for data collection conducted in BM Section informal settlements in Khayelitsha, to investigate the complex impacts of CBS on women’s everyday lives, including access to sanitation, sanitation experiences, and gender disparities attached to CBS services. Interviews were conducted with female residents of BM Section to collect data and answer the research question: How do women's lived experiences with CBS in Khayelitsha reflect infrastructural citizenship? Key findings revealed that despite the CoCT's provision of free, scaled-up CBS in informal settlements, CBS still falls short in addressing the sanitation needs of vulnerable groups, specifically women, which reveals a disconnect in the state-citizen contract. CBS infrastructure remains a site of social struggle, perpetuating gendered inequalities in terms of barriers concerning access, safety, security, and hygiene of the facilities and reinforcing power dynamics that already exist in the community.