Manual Scavenging in Mumbai: The Systems of Oppression

Dubey, Sheeva Yamunaprasad; Murphy, John W.

doi:10.1177/0160597620964760

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…16 While commonly used in India today, the word ‘caste’—derived from the Latin ‘castus’ meaning ‘chaste’—was initially used by the Portuguese in the mid-16th century to denote Hindu societal stratification 17 into four primary groups with distinct social privileges and duties. 18 Concepts of purity and pollution play an important role in these divisions. 19 Bodily fluid, faecal matter and carcasses are deemed pollutants, both in terms of cleanliness and holiness.…”

Section: A Sociocultural History Of Scavengingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although it would be wrong to romanticise the paternalist worker protection offered by post-Independence administrations, the increasing neoliberalisation of India’s economy and concomitant focus on labour competition have exacerbated the condition of low-cost, lower-caste workers. 18 …”

Section: A State Of Limbomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The caste system in India has long divided communities into a distinct social hierarchy based on concepts of cleanliness embedded in Hindu philosophy 16. While commonly used in India today, the word ‘caste’—derived from the Latin ‘castus’ meaning ‘chaste’—was initially used by the Portuguese in the mid-16th century to denote Hindu societal stratification17 into four primary groups with distinct social privileges and duties 18. Concepts of purity and pollution play an important role in these divisions 19.…”

Section: A Sociocultural History Of Scavengingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there has been little political appetite to address the underlying environmental conditions, entrenched social attitudes, economic precarity and gender biases that have been driving manual scavenging and the marginalisation of scavenging communities. Although it would be wrong to romanticise the paternalist worker protection offered by post-Independence administrations, the increasing neoliberalisation of India’s economy and concomitant focus on labour competition have exacerbated the condition of low-cost, lower-caste workers 18…”

Section: A State Of Limbomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Between paternalism and illegality: a longitudinal analysis of the role and condition of manual scavengers in India

et al. 2022

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Manual scavengers, or ‘Safai Karamcharis’, as they are known in India, are sanitation workers who manually clean human waste for a living and face considerable occupational health risks. They are subject to deep-seated, caste-based stigma associated with their perceived ‘caste impurity’ and lack of cleanliness, which result both in consistently dangerous substandard working conditions and lack of social mobility, with women facing greater hardships. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated their plight. Despite the considerable efforts of social advocates, organised movements and government institutions, reforms and criminalisation have produced mixed results and campaigners remain divided on whether banning manual scavenging is an effective solution. This article reviews the history of attempts to address scavenging in India. Starting in the colonial period and ending with the current government’s Swachh Bharat Mission, it highlights how attempts to deal with scavenging via quick-fix solutions like legal bans criminalising their employment, infrastructure upgrades or paternalistic interventions have either failed to resolve issues or exacerbated scavengers’ situation by pushing long-standing problems out of view. It argues that meaningful progress depends on abandoning top-down modes of decision-making, addressing the underlying sociocultural and infrastructural factors that perpetuate the ill health and social conditions of manual scavengers, collecting data on the true extent of scavenging, and investing in and providing political agency to communities themselves.

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Section: A Sociocultural History Of Scavengingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Of Limbomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Sociocultural History Of Scavengingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A State Of Limbomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Between paternalism and illegality: a longitudinal analysis of the role and condition of manual scavengers in India

et al. 2022

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“…We also pose key questions that require deeper, interdisciplinary engagement (from Anthropology and Geography, History and Social Development, to Policy, Law and Civil Engineering) with, and in support of sanitary workers and their representatives going forward. to be associated with low-class and religious, racial and ethnic minorities around the world, from particular ethnic groups in Japan (Hanley, 1987;Groemer, 2001), Nigeria (Uwa, 2018) and Madagascar (Rijke-Epstein, 2019), to tribal minorities in Ghana (Nkansah et al, 2012) (Sultana and Subedi, 2016) -and reproduction of caste as a contemporary form of social, economic and political power (Shahid, 2015;Dubey et al, 2021). Whilst commonly associated with the removal of feces from dry latrines in rural India, manual scavenging has adapted with modernization (Wilson and Singh, 2017) with the introduction of sewers, newly constructed toilets and septic tanks (Mander et al, 2019).…”

Section: Going Deeper: An Intersectional and Interdisciplinary Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sanitation work: Realizing equity and inclusion in WASH

et al. 2022

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Recognition of the human right to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and equity and inclusion concerns around gender, disability and age have led to crucial change in WASH programmes and policy, responding to commonly hidden issues such as menstrual hygiene, inclusive facilities for people with disabilities, and affordable services for residents of informal settlements. Despite progress toward realizing the rights of end users “to” sanitation, this crucial body of work has overlooked the rights of an unseen, diverse population working “in” these services, including those who handle human waste. There are increasing calls within and beyond WASH for sanitation workers - marginalized by their informal and hazardous roles, and intersections of caste, religion and gender - to realize their rights to safe working conditions and social security. Yet, sanitation work has received little attention from equity and inclusion WASH scholars, despite the pressing need to challenge dominant technical, health-centric framings of sanitation that can overlook workers' lived realities. We argue for an intersectional, interdisciplinary approach to support sanitation workers to realize rights to fair living and working conditions, including inclusive WASH infrastructure at work. We draw on the limited literature available to highlight gaps in, and show the importance of the sub-sector of equity and inclusion to engage further with the lived realities of sanitation workers. Increased collaboration between sanitation workers, activists, and allies working on inclusion, labor rights, fecal sludge and solid waste management is paramount to realize sanitation workers' rights and to truly provide “inclusive” sanitation for all by 2030.

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Gender identities, water insecurity, and risk: Re‐theorizing the connections for a gender‐inclusive toolkit for water insecurity research

Brewis,

DuBois,

Wutich

et al. 2023

WIREs Water

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Informed by decades of literature, water interventions increasingly deploy “gender‐sensitive” or even “gender transformative” approaches that seek to redress the disproportionate harms women face from water insecurity. These efforts recognize the role of gendered social norms and unequal power relations but often focus narrowly on the differences and dynamics between cisgender (cis) men and women. This approach renders less visible the ways that living with water insecurity can differentially affect all individuals through the dynamics of gender, sexuality, and linked intersecting identities. Here, we first share a conceptual toolkit that explains gender as fluid, negotiated, and diverse beyond the cis‐binary. Using this as a starting point, we then review what is known and can be theorized from current literature, identifying limited observations from water‐insecure communities to identify examples of contexts where gendered mechanisms (such as social norms) differentiate experiences of water insecurity, such as elevating risks of social stigma, physical harm, or psychological distress. We then apply this approach to consider expanded ways to include transgender, non‐binary, and gender and sexual diversity to deepen, nuance and expand key thematics and approaches for water insecurity research. Reconceptualizing gender in these ways widens theoretical possibilities, changes how we collect data, and imagines new possibilities for effective and just water interventions.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Value of Water Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Human Water > Methods

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Manual Scavenging in Mumbai: The Systems of Oppression

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

Between paternalism and illegality: a longitudinal analysis of the role and condition of manual scavengers in India

Between paternalism and illegality: a longitudinal analysis of the role and condition of manual scavengers in India

Sanitation work: Realizing equity and inclusion in WASH

Gender identities, water insecurity, and risk: Re‐theorizing the connections for a gender‐inclusive toolkit for water insecurity research

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