WASHing away colonial legacies

In my first post I made a conscious decision to take a de-colonial approach within my writing in order to fully dissect the ways in which water and sanitation are framed. In this post I aim to dismantle the WASH sector, which, like much of development practices, is inherently political, and thus I hope that by unpacking the deep rooted manifestations of colonisation within Africa, I will be able decolonise our minds and somewhat WASH away these lingering colonial legacies...

Knowledge colonialism

Despite the fact that the decolonisation of Africa took place from the mid 1950s to 1975, the reality is that "knowledge colonialism" still very much exists, where knowledge creation and dissemination is shaped by the Global North. In addition to this, a theoretical vacuum has long existed within much of the developing world, particularly Africa, where, just like the colonial economy, the extraction of knowledge, has long been organised in such a way that it responds to the demand of the Western world, and thus doesn't serve the societies in which the research is conducted. 

Highlighted in the figure below, are the great inequalities that exist within the both the production and exchange of knowledge, where it can be seen that proportionately, Africa is barely visible. But, does this map further exaggerate these inequalities by rendering Africa as invisible and illegible?


Figure 1: Knowledge production map

Ignorantly, the map only portrays science research, and thus fails to incorporate social sciences and humanities as well as grey literature, which are bountiful in research concerning pressing development issues, such as those surrounding the WASH sector. By ignoring these sources, like much of organisations and development practitioners do, we are failing to engage with a large portion of culturally and geographically specific knowledge. Thus, in order to implement meaningful change, it is important that we shake up the current knowledge production mix by moving African scholars and researchers into the foreground.

The WASH sector as a colonised field 

Much of development studies, remains colonised where development agencies and non-governmental organisation often plaster ‘one size fits all’ strategies over the complex "wounds" within Africa. The WASH sector conforms to box ticking exercises, where it is known that donors like concrete and measurable actions, such as building toilets, which has since been coined as a "vending machine approach". However, it isn't quite as simple as just having toilets, but rather the concern is having a toilet that works.This matter is emphasised by Colin McFarlane, who states that behind the news articles, statistics and images, there are lived realities. Where there are toilets, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are functioning, affordable and clean. There are a lot of issues surrounding gender, security and human dignity that also come to light here; a toilet may be present and accessible, but if it is located in an unlit alley, women will fear to use this facility and instead opt to defecate in an open space. Then we are back to square one...

According to UNICEF, as much as 30-50% of WASH projects fail after just 2 to 5 years, and this is usually attributed to lack of community knowledge and engagement. The WASH sector needs to utilise the indispensable insight that is available to prevent issues such as the above from occurring again. Ultimately by ignoring these voices and instead implementing strategies that the Global North perceive as successful, this will result in failed projects, thus providing a great barrier to health justice. 

What can we do?

Euphresia, a WASH governance consultant from Kenya, advocates for the showcasing of Black perspectives and knowledge products based on collaborative research and peer review, She discusses how COVID 19 and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, could converge to offer a pivotal and significant moment for us all to pause and reflect; a wake-up call for leaders to take a closer look at WASH generation knowledge, and thus present opportunities to develop greater, more equitable collaboration between researchers in the global North and South.

If you are as interested in this topic as I am, I suggest watching the video below for an interesting discussion around decolonising the WASH sector knowledge and decolonising systems thinking:


In my upcoming post, I will delve deeper into the effects of this colonial overhang, focusing on the infrastructure, delivery, and provision of water within a settlement in Kenya, as well as unpacking this "systems thinking approach". 

See you then!


Comments

  1. Richard taylorNovember 19, 2021 at 5:28 AM

    Thanks for this fluent and provocative opening post. There is a healthy critical perspective presented here. One suggestion is to explore more specifically the implications of the arguments you make. For example, might you consider colonial legacies in terms of, say, infrastructure and approaches to delivery/provision of water and sanitation? On functionality of water and sanitation, I suggest that you have a look at recent work under the "Hidden Crisis" project under the UK government-funded, UPGro programme (https://upgro.org/consortium/hidden-crisis2/).

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    Replies
    1. The Sanitation StationNovember 22, 2021 at 4:05 AM

      Thank you, I am going to look into the arguments I have made in this post as a part two of this series. I hope to delve into the colonial manifestations that exist within infrastructure and approaches to delivery/provision as you have suggested. Thanks for the link to the "Hidden Crisis" project, I have taken a look at this resource, and I look forward to engaging with it in a future post!

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