Assessing states: Water service delivery and evolving state–society relations in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa

Harris, Leila M.

doi:10.1177/2399654419859365

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Our data suggest limited cross-sectoral dialogue, limited engagement between the authorities and communities, and integration of different departments in the production of strategies and programmes. The local municipality in the Agincourt HDSS struggles to continuously supply safe water; a common phenomenon in rural municipalities across South Africa [41,42]. This finding is consistent with other studies.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Developing stakeholder participation to address lack of safe water as a community health concern in a rural province in South Africa

Hove

D’Ambruoso

Twine

et al. 2021

Global Health Action

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Background: Despite legislative and policy commitments to participatory water governance in South Africa, and some remarkable achievements, there has been limited progress to improve the water infrastructure servicing in marginalized rural communities. Around five million South Africans still do not have access to safe water. Objective: This paper seeks to understand and advance processes to engage multisectoral stakeholders to respond to lack of safe water as a community-nominated health priority in rural South Africa. Method: We engaged representatives from Mpumalanga Department of Health (MDoH), rural communities, other government departments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to cooperatively generate, interpret and act on evidence addressing community-nominated priorities. A series of participatory workshops were conducted where stakeholders worked together as co-researchers to develop shared accounts of the problem, and recommendations to address it. Consensus on the problem, mapping existing planning and policy landscapes, and initiating constructive dialogue was facilitated through group discussions in a collective learning process. Results: Community stakeholders nominated lack of safe water as a local priority public health issue and generated evidence on causes and contributors, and health and social impacts. Together with government and NGO stakeholders, this evidence was corroborated. Stakeholders developed a local action plan through consensus and feasibility appraisal. Actions committed to behavioural change and reorganization of existing services, were relevant to the needs of the local community and were developed with consideration of current policies and strategies. A positive, collective reflection was made on the process. The greatest gain reported was the development of dialogue in 'safe spaces' through which mutual understanding, insights into the functioning of other sectors and learning by doing were achieved. Conclusion: Our process reflected willingness and commitment among stakeholders to work together collectively addressing local water challenges. Location in an established public health observatory helped to create neutral, mediated spaces for participation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Developing stakeholder participation to address lack of safe water as a community health concern in a rural province in South Africa

Hove

D’Ambruoso

Twine

et al. 2021

Global Health Action

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“…A considerable number of studies have explored the links between urban services and state-society relations (Lemanski, 2019), including in the African context. As suggested by Harris (2020), research in a diversity of cities can challenge connections between service quality and trust in government and raise important questions concerning differences between different countries. Foucauldian views of the state as a symbolic entity with real effects generated through the practices of both state and non-state actors open the analytical view to the notion of ‘state effects’ (Mitchell, 1991) and processes of statisation (Painter, 2006).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Crucially, interviews with households in Bafatá and key informants showed that while localised state practices fundamentally shaped water infrastructure in Bafatá, these practices remained invisible to both state-society and state-donor relations. Like Harris (2020) suggests in the case of Ghana, there are few narratives among citizens directly connecting the state to water delivery in Bafatá. If anything, improvements in service appeared to feed perceptions of NGOs and donors’ roles in service provision.…”

Section: State Practices and Water Infrastructure In Bafatá: Unveilinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ethnographic and Foucauldian understandings of the state that view the state as ‘a structural effect’ and defy reified understandings of the autonomous state can help us unpack everyday practices in urban infrastructure in light of broader processes of governance and state formation (Hansen and Stepputat, 2001; Harris, 2020; Mitchell, 1991). Mitchell (1991: 94) argues the state ‘should be examined not as an actual structure but as the powerful, metaphysical effect of practices that make such structures appear to exist’.…”

Section: The State In/through ‘Heterogeneous’ Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 99%

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Everyday states and water infrastructure: Insights from a small secondary city in Africa, Bafatá in Guinea-Bissau

Alves

2019

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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A rich body of work on everyday governance and urban infrastructure has produced nuanced understandings of the situated power relations and manifold practices shaping urban infrastructure in diverse cities. However, there is little research focusing on the practices and relations of state actors, and examining how these might shape different infrastructural configurations and relate to broader processes of state formation. This is particularly the case for secondary cities in Africa. This article draws on anthropological explorations of the state and debates on local ownership in aid to examine how state practices and relations have shaped water infrastructure in a small secondary city (Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau), and how the state is constituted in this process. Based on extensive ethnographic work, this research demonstrates that in a context of aid dependency, state influence is necessarily constituted through its relations with non-state organisations. Formal state presence therefore depends on the subtle and erratic recognition bestowed on the state by non-state organisations. However, local state actors continue to shape water provision in Bafatá in fundamental ways not through following policy and regulatory frameworks, but through their (informal) decisions, practices and interactions with non-state organisations. Overall, it is argued that anthropological explorations of states open our analytical lens to the mundane ways in which states shape different types of urban infrastructure, and the ways these practices relate to broader processes of state formation, particularly in context where states appear elusive.

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“…Debates about water fluoridation and chlorination reveal that community concerns are as much about faith in scientific experts, regulatory agencies, and governance as they are about the technical matter at hand. Broad considerations regarding trust in government, faith in democracy, and how this is connected to household water provision has only begun to be explored in the literature (Harris, 2020).…”

Section: Exposing Six Myths Of Household Water Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exposing the myths of household water insecurity in the global north: A critical review

et al. 2020

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Safe and secure water is a cornerstone of modern life in the global North. This article critically examines a set of prevalent myths about household water in high-income countries, with a focus on Canada and the United States. Taking a relational approach, we argue that household water insecurity is a product of institutionalized structures and power, manifests unevenly through space and time, and is reproduced in places we tend to assume are the most water-secure in the world. We first briefly introduce "modern water" and the modern infrastructural ideal, a highly influential set of ideas that have shaped household water provision and infrastructure development over the past two centuries. Against this backdrop, we consolidate evidence to disrupt a set of narratives about water in high-income countries: the notion that water access is universal, clean, affordable, trustworthy, and uniformly or equitably governed. We identify five thematic areas of future research to delineate an agenda for advancing scholarship and actionincluding challenges of legal and regulatory regimes, the housing-water nexus, water affordability, and water quality and contamination. Data gaps underpin the experiences of household water insecurity. Taken together, our review of water security for households in high-income countries provides a conceptual map to direct critical research in this area for the coming years.

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Assessing states: Water service delivery and evolving state–society relations in Accra, Ghana and Cape Town, South Africa

Cited by 17 publications

References 54 publications

Developing stakeholder participation to address lack of safe water as a community health concern in a rural province in South Africa

Developing stakeholder participation to address lack of safe water as a community health concern in a rural province in South Africa

Everyday states and water infrastructure: Insights from a small secondary city in Africa, Bafatá in Guinea-Bissau

Exposing the myths of household water insecurity in the global north: A critical review

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