Abstract:
While the provision of and access to clean water by the poor has been an important international focus in recent years, issues of sanitation are as yet not nearly as thoroughly analyzed. Evidence of the inadequacy of conventional approaches to sanitation is nevertheless rapidly emerging, as we discover that they are in themselves neither effective in improving health, nor sustainable and rarely accessible to rural populations in the South. The importance of developing socially, institutionally, economically and environmentally sustainable solutions for rural sanitation is therefore quickly becoming apparent. There are a number of challenges, however, in moving out of a conventional sanitation paradigm towards more innovative approaches. Technology development in sanitation has proven to be powerladen, with little room for maneuver within an engineering-based regime. There are, however, exceptions. Sustainable sanitation is an emerging field of research in the North that has shown promising results in addressing environmental issues, and may prove relevant in the South. This will require that the process of technology development be both reconceptualized and contextualized, to ensure that technologies are not only effective and sustainable but equitable and empowering as well and in fact lead to a better quality of life for rural women, men and children. This paper explores processes of innovation and technology-development in sustainable sanitation, through an analysis of a joint Pakistani-Norwegian research programme. We explore the proposition that institutions and actors with similar approaches, ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies tend to band together in powered knowledge regimes, reinforcing each other, and preventing the development of alternative constellations, both within their institutions and with external actors. We also contend that, by identifying the underlying approaches of various institutions or actors, and the constitution of power relations, one can better understand how alternative framings might be constructed and new alliances formed, leading to the emergence of new regimes of knowledge-sharing and development, and thus new pathways toward sustainable development. Case data was obtained through observation of and participation in research and education proposal development, programme-planning meetings and stake-holder workshops in Norway, Nepal and Pakistan, during the period from January 2007 to June 2009. Based on this case, we argue that the University can play an important role in managing a new regime of technology-development and promoting social change, particularly where there is a strong policyfocus on participation and equity issues.
Page(s):
51-62
DOI:
DOI not available
Published:
Journal: Science Vision, Volume: 15, Issue: 1, Year: 2009