An index of waste: humanitarian design, "dignified living" and the politics of infrastructure in Cape Town. Issue 2 (31st May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Redfield, Peter; Robins, Steven
• Is Part Of: Anthropology Southern Africa. Volume 39:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 145
• Page End: 162
• Publication Date: 2016-05-31
• Subjects: activism -- design -- humanitarianism -- infrastructure -- politics -- sanitation -- toilets; Anthropology -- Africa, Southern -- Periodicals; Ethnology -- Africa, Southern -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 301.0968
• DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2016.1172942
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2332-3256

Abstract

Abstract : This article develops a framework for thinking about waste as an index that signals a relational position within contested, historically layered conceptions of human order. It follows two contrasting frameworks for thinking about sanitation infrastructure: a quest to redesign the toilet at a global level for underserved populations, and popular conceptions of rights, citizenship and dignity grounded in the materiality of infrastructure in post-apartheid South Africa. By integrating highly abstract understandings of value with intimately embodied qualities of experience, the problem of sanitation simultaneously connects and divides human populations. It unites them at a species level, only to distinguish them at a social one. From this perspective, human waste is hardly a neutral substance, defined by its chemical properties. Rather, waste actively registers relational human status and position within a political ecology of needs.