Grave expectations : participatory greywater management in two Western Cape shack settlements

Kruger, E M

Grave expectations : participatory greywater management in two Western Cape shack settlements

Master Thesis

2009

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Social Anthropology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

South Africa faces enormous challenges in the face of burgeoning urbanisation and the growth of underserviced shack settlements. Waste water disposal is but one of many aspects of basic services that are lacking. This anthropological dissertation is focused upon a Water Research Commission funded project, conducted by University of Cape Town academics from the departments of Civil Engineering, Social Anthropology and Environmental and Geographic Sciences, and carried out in two shack settlements in the Western Cape, South Africa. The project's aim was to engender community-level greywater management through participatory methods in the two shack settlements. The dissertation involves close analyses of participatory methods, the legislation and policy which governs service delivery to shack settlements in South Africa, and ethnographic accounts of shack settlement residents' experiences of service delivery. This information is compared with the assumptions upon which the project was predicated, to argue that the project's participatory aims were challenged from the outset by the political and socio-economic context within which the project was carried out. Moreover, in line with enduring criticisms of participatory development - in spite of a professed adherence to the methodologies - was unable to achieve its participatory goals.

Description

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-180).

Keywords

Social Anthropology

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