Wiltgen Georgi, N., Buthelezi, S. and Meth, P. orcid.org/0000-0002-2273-5134 (2021) Gendered infrastructural citizenship: shared sanitation facilities in Quarry Road West informal settlement, Durban, South Africa. Urban Forum, 32 (4). pp. 437-456. ISSN 1015-3802
Abstract
One significant component of the South African citizenship narrative is centred around the right to basic services and corresponding elements, including dignity and a healthy living environment. This paper employs the concept of infrastructural citizenship, which draws on both infrastructure and citizenship discourses to explore how participants experience and challenge public infrastructure and as such engage with questions surrounding citizenship on an everyday basis (Lemanski, 2019a). Adopting a gendered approach, this paper draws on the empirical case of Quarry Road West, an informal settlement located in Durban, and uses a qualitative methodology. Residents have access to Community Ablution Blocks, free shared sanitation facilities provided by the eThekwini Municipality. This paper argues that restricted access to the facilities undermines perceptions of privacy and health and negatively impacts women individually and in the community. Furthermore, this paper evaluates civic responses to inadequate infrastructure in the form of participation, protest and state-directed actions. As such, it examines how women-state relationships are embedded in public infrastructure, and limitations in regards to infrastructure shape interactions and engagements with the state, their experiences of citizenship, actualisation of rights and identities.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Urban Forum. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Gender; Community ablution blocks; Citizenship; Infrastructure; Informal settlements |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 28 Oct 2021 08:16 |
Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2022 00:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s12132-021-09421-z |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:179720 |