The politics of open defecation: informality, body, and infrastructure in Mumbai

Desai, R.; McFarlane, C.; Graham, S.

doi:10.1111/anti.12117

The politics of open defecation: informality, body, and infrastructure in Mumbai

Desai, R.; McFarlane, C.; Graham, S.

Authors

R. Desai

Professor Colin Mcfarlane colin.mcfarlane@durham.ac.uk
Professor

S. Graham

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of open defecation by focusing on everyday intersections of the body and infrastructure in the metabolic city, which produces profoundly unequal opportunities for fulfilling bodily needs. Specifically, it examines how open defecation emerges in Mumbai's informal settlements through everyday embodied experiences, practices and perceptions forged in relation to the materialities of informality and infrastructure. It does so by tracing the micropolitics of provision, access, territoriality and control of sanitation infrastructures; everyday routines and rhythms, both of people and infrastructures; and experiences of disgust and perceptions of dignity. It also examines open defecation as embodied spatial and temporal improvisations in order to investigate the socially differentiated efforts and risks that it entails. More broadly, the paper seeks to deepen understandings of the relationship between the body, infrastructure and the sanitary/unsanitary city.

Citation

Desai, R., McFarlane, C., & Graham, S. (2015). The politics of open defecation: informality, body, and infrastructure in Mumbai. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 47(1), 98-120. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12117

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 17, 2014
Online Publication Date	Aug 22, 2014
Publication Date	Jan 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Jul 17, 2014
Publicly Available Date	Aug 22, 2016
Journal	Antipode
Print ISSN	0066-4812
Electronic ISSN	1467-8330
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	47
Issue	1
Pages	98-120
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12117
Keywords	Body, Defecation, Informality, Infrastructure, Mumbai, Sanitation.

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Copyright Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Desai R., McFarlane C., and Graham S. (2014), The Politics of Open Defecation: Informality, Body, and Infrastructure in Mumbai, Antipode, 47 (1): 98-120, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/anti.12117. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.