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Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town

Informal settlement sanitation service delivery continues as one the most urgent, imposing challenges of contemporary basic service provision in South Africa. Municipal, provincial and national sanitation and political authorities expect informal settlement residents to take ownership of and respons...

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Main Author: Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
Other Authors: Spiegel, Andrew
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Social Anthropology 2016
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access_status_str Open Access
author Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
author2 Spiegel, Andrew
author_browse Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
Spiegel, Andrew
author_facet Spiegel, Andrew
Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
author_sort Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
collection Thesis
description Informal settlement sanitation service delivery continues as one the most urgent, imposing challenges of contemporary basic service provision in South Africa. Municipal, provincial and national sanitation and political authorities expect informal settlement residents to take ownership of and responsibility for state-installed toilet facilities, with municipally-managed janitorial services also in operation in many settlements countrywide. Yet resident-driven sanitation management practices and the site-specific realities of informal settlements have not been adequately understood nor have they informed basic service delivery development. This has in part led to uncertainty in terms of how to designate and sustain responsibilities to relevant stakeholders regarding sanitation maintenance. Based on fieldwork in the Masiphumelele Wetlands informal settlement and temporary relocation area on Cape Town's southern peninsula, this dissertation describes a range of communally-managed sanitation systems that operate alongside municipally-managed janitorial services and which demonstrate varying degrees of local senses of ownership of responsibility for municipally-provided flush toilet facilities. A bottom-up, iterative development approach is argued for, one that critically considers the spectrum of factors that constrain and stimulate ownership and responsibility by informal settlement residents as well as the cultural contingencies that constitute communal sanitation management in informal settlements.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
publishDateRange 2016
publishDateSort 2016
publisher Social Anthropology
publisherStr Social Anthropology
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20602 Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town Schroeder, Matthew Wayne Spiegel, Andrew Social Anthropology Informal settlement sanitation service delivery continues as one the most urgent, imposing challenges of contemporary basic service provision in South Africa. Municipal, provincial and national sanitation and political authorities expect informal settlement residents to take ownership of and responsibility for state-installed toilet facilities, with municipally-managed janitorial services also in operation in many settlements countrywide. Yet resident-driven sanitation management practices and the site-specific realities of informal settlements have not been adequately understood nor have they informed basic service delivery development. This has in part led to uncertainty in terms of how to designate and sustain responsibilities to relevant stakeholders regarding sanitation maintenance. Based on fieldwork in the Masiphumelele Wetlands informal settlement and temporary relocation area on Cape Town's southern peninsula, this dissertation describes a range of communally-managed sanitation systems that operate alongside municipally-managed janitorial services and which demonstrate varying degrees of local senses of ownership of responsibility for municipally-provided flush toilet facilities. A bottom-up, iterative development approach is argued for, one that critically considers the spectrum of factors that constrain and stimulate ownership and responsibility by informal settlement residents as well as the cultural contingencies that constitute communal sanitation management in informal settlements. 2016-07-22T13:13:34Z 2016-07-22T13:13:34Z 2016 Master Thesis Masters MA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20602 eng application/pdf Social Anthropology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Social Anthropology
Schroeder, Matthew Wayne
Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
title_full Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
title_fullStr Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
title_full_unstemmed Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
title_short Whose toilet is it anyway? : an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally-managed janitor-serviced sanitation facilities in Masiphumelele, Cape Town
title_sort whose toilet is it anyway an ethnographic investigation into communally managed and municipally managed janitor serviced sanitation facilities in masiphumelele cape town
topic Social Anthropology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20602
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