Sanitation Software: Origins, Glitches & Puzzles

In the second post of my blog, I considered the broad theme of sanitation hardware. Specifically I focused on how Ecosan's holistic framework of functionality could serve to evolve African sanitation practices.

By the end of the post, I undoubtedly felt optimistic about how transformative Ecosan could be in Africa. However, a key question concerning the openness of community needs remained unanswered. This led me to consider 'The Unmentionable' theme identified in my introductory post, and forced me to ask - "why was sanitation implementation failing with such flexible sanitary frameworks?". The subsequent intrigue led me to write this post concerning sanitation ‘software’. Here, I contextualise how socio-cultural factors have contributed to sanitary resistance, and how such ‘glitches’ are seen through the Akan people of Ghana. By doing so, I introduce two important questions that I hope will fuel subsequent posts!

What’s contributing to sanitation failures in Africa?

As previously noted, historical failures of African sanitation technologies have originated from their grounding in such western conceptualizations as the “bacteriological city” (Gandy, 2008;126), which presumed settlements were homogenous and spatially coherent. These assumptions were, and still are, clearly challenged by the social and spatial fragmentation present in Global South cities, contributing heavily to the failures of sanitation ‘fixes’. 

Of course, following my previous blog, you may be thinking - “Surely Ecosan's the perfect fix?”. Unfortunately, however, Ecosan also faces significant cultural barriers in it’s adoption, due to such necessities as handling faecal ‘end products’ during cleaning and maintenance. This factor, although potentially trivial to many readers, is one that cannot be overlooked in communities where the “great distaste surrounding shit” (Black and Fawcett, 2008: 138) presents a major obstacle to progress. Consequently, before and after overcoming basic technological obstacles, communities must also challenge the ‘software’ components of sanitation, such as local perspectives and communication, to solve ‘glitches’ in approaches to sanitation. This is obvious when considering the example of Ghana (Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Map depicting the location of Ghana in the African Continent (Source: Ohio University)

Software glitches in the Ghanian Hygienic Puzzle

In their work on ‘The hygienic puzzle’ in Ghana, van der Geest (1998) brings particular attention to the relevance of software issues by highlighting sanitary practices in Akan communities. Here, because beauty and respectability are synonymous with cleanliness, Akan people are conditioned to avoid interacting with one another when in need of sanitation facilities, refraining from acknowledging its normality and necessity. So strong is the obsession of avoiding dirtiness, or any association with it, that Akan culture has paradoxically manifested extremely ineffective ways of dealing with waste (Jewitt 2011). This includes maintaining social visibility, to the point where “an Akan can tell from the way a walker holds his cloth if he is socially visible, i.e. shat and bathed, or invisible, i.e. belly full and unwashed” (van der Geest, 1998: 10). This begs an important question:

If the simple need to use the toilet turns community members invisible, how are individuals supposed to normalise sanitation practices and facilitate communal collaboration for its advancement?

Simultaneously, we should also note the significant social invisibility that extends to, and consumes the identity of, the Krufoo (Kru people, from Sierra Leone and Liberia). The Krufoo stereotypically take on the job of emptying and cleaning the sanitation facilities, primarily because “no Akan native of the town would ever think of performing this kind of dirty and poorly paid work” (van der Geest, 1998:10). Branded as ‘the people of the night’, the Krufoo are the literal personification of traditional Akan horror to excrement, only carrying out their duties whilst everyone else is asleep. This ensures they have “[made] themselves and their load invisible” (van der Geest, 1998:10). In removing visibility, sanitation is therefore inherently the responsibility of the invisible, begging a second question:

If sanitation is marginalised because of an absence of visible momentum from below, how do we provide the means to be seen and heard? 

Both these questions are complicated and warrant a thoughtful consideration of how they might be answered.

Where have we landed?

In Akan cultural norms hide sanitary practices. 'The Unmentionable' theme identified at the beginning, thus serves as an intangible cause of very tangible consequences. Recognising this, the upcoming posts will be centered around the questions posed above, concentrating on how discussions and solutions can be used to tackle 'The Unmentionable' head on.