Perceptions of sanitation

Sanitation has for hundreds of years been perceived as something very personal and unspeakable. It is clear that topics such as human excreta or toilet habits are, even today, uncomfortable for the majority of the world to discuss. This silence around sanitation is problematic when it comes to carrying out research, educating communities and implementing large scale policies. In this post, I will briefly explore some colonial perceptions of sanitation, and current views and interventions.

In Western Europe, images of hygiene, cleanliness and beauty increased during the 19^th century.  Hygienic practices were seen as socially progressive, the essence or “primary art of civilisation” (Burke 1996: 32). According to Ramanna (2004:205), the self-assumed duty to ‘civilise’ and ‘sanitise’ was primarily founded on the perception of superiority of western medicine and ideas of sanitation. Much colonial discourse demonstrated an inextricable relationship between disease, sanitation and racist perceptions (de Barros 2003: 68). During the 20th century, powerful images and imaginaries portrayed Africans as dirty and diseased. Poor sanitary conditions were seen as contributing to high death tolls and as being a major threat to the health of European settlers, something which they very much feared (see Frenkel and Western 1988). Such sentiments were unique in 'physicality', influencing whites to act with revulsion towards the African population. Soap was essentially the poster child for hygiene in 19^th century colonial times. It was not used in interior southern Africa but was used in European settlements. Instead, in Zimbabwe, for example, ruredzo (a ground vine with powdered leaves) and chitupatupa (root plant pounded into soap-like cake) plants were used for washing by the 'natives' (Burke 1996: 24). Burke gives examples of records and diaries kept by travellers and settlers in Zimbabwe during the colonial era. These accounts associate Africans with words such as ‘unwashed’, ‘smelly’ and ‘nasty microbes’, indicating the strong perceptions of dirtiness and inferiority colonial subjects experienced.

Taboos surrounding sanitation vary significantly across space and time. In some places or communities the subject is practically taboo and often associated with the poor or low classes. In Ghana, cultural attitudes towards faeces in the Akan community demonstrate severe contradictions: getting rid of dirt from the body is important, but avoiding dirt is also vital. This results in the Akan people having ‘extremely inefficient systems of dealing with faeces’. Their unhygienic practices vary from using dirty crowded and overflowing toilets, to defecating in the open or plastic bags that they throw in a bush or out with their household rubbish (Jewitt 2011). In recent years, politicians and investors have turned their eyes towards the sector of sanitation; the year 2008 was declared by the UN as the International Year of Sanitation to highlight the fact that one third of the world’s population lack access to ‘improved sanitation'. For instance, Joshi et al. (2016) discuss the School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) programme in Ghana, a project that consisted of teaching children in schools the risks of open defecation and the advantages of hygienic practices (e.g. hand washing). These children would not only change their own sanitary behaviours but also influence their wider community, teaching their families, or acting as watchdogs and confronting open defecators. However, the effectiveness of the SLTS is hindered by the unevenness in access and quality of clean toilets and hand-washing facilities. Flush systems are not likely to be inexpensive or sustainable in Ghana and many countries of the global South, with investments in these totalling US$30billion and access to clean water posing a major problem for progress in the area (Jewitt 2011). Ultimately, perceptions of sanitation can only do so much to improve conditions.

Still, taboos and negative perceptions of sanitation-related activities have made it extremely difficult to learn about and tackle these issues. It was not only the colonial rulers that saw cleanliness and purity in sanitation, with hygienic practices (e.g. hand washing, flush latrines) considered a symbol of modernity as part of their “civilising mission”, but it is also currently the case in other places (see the case of the Akan people, Ghana). As Black and Fawcett (2008: 10) state, ‘today’s sanitary crisis requires that we dismantle the last great taboo, and learn to talk about ... shit’. However, perceptions and knowledge of better sanitation practices alone are clearly not sufficient to improve sanitation if resources simply are not provided.