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The Everyday Politics of Water: Services and Citizenship for the Urban Poor in Kathmandu, Nepal

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The Everyday Politics of Water: Services and Citizenship for the Urban Poor in Kathmandu, Nepal The Everyday Politics of Water: Services and Citizenship for the Urban Poor in Kathmandu, Nepal The Case of Bansighat, an Informal Settlement Stephanie Butcher Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering University College London Supervisor: Dr. Alex Frediani Secondary Supervisor: Julian Walker April 2019 I, Stephanie Butcher confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed, Stephanie Butcher Acknowledgements I would like to extend a warm thank you to those that have contributed to this process along the way. Firstly, to my supervisor Alex Frediani who has provided invaluable advice, inspiration, mentorship, and humour throughout this time. Thank you for unfailing enthusiasm, and for seeing and creating possibilities. Similarly, to Julian Walker for supervisory support, but also for broader professional and personal wisdom. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of the “SDP team”. Thank you also to the broader family at the DPU. I cannot express the inspiration I have found here with colleagues and friends. I feel incredibly lucky to undertaken this work with a department and group of individuals that have inspired me, and the opportunity to continuously learn from incredible academics and humans. Thanks also to the ‘resilient writers’ PhD group, for providing a space to share ideas, troubles, and encouragement in the process. Thank you to Mansoor Ali, Lucy Stevens, and Lizzy Whitehead at Practical Action for their vision in setting up this collaboration and the Centre for Urban Sustainability and Resilience and the CEGE department for facilitating this opportunity. I would also like to thank the partners and collaborators I found in Kathmandu. Bhagvati and Raju and the wider network of Mahila Ekta Samaj for their ongoing work and trust in this process. Prakash Amatya and the team of Guthi for their vision and commitment to water justice across Kathmandu. The residents of Bansighat for their time and their tea, and who allowed me to spend so much time with them. The incredible Lajan Maharjan for research assistance. Andrew Suzuki for support with the participatory photography workshops. Finally, there is a set of people that have always been with me. It wouldn’t be possible (or worth it!) without the love of Lisya Yafet, Dean Corsi, Henry Mathes, Laura Hirst, Ignacia Ossul, Tatiana Ome, Amy Scott, and my far away family—Dan Gartner and Tash St. Jean. Abstract This thesis focuses on the ‘everyday politics of water’ inside a single informal settlement in Kathmandu, Nepal, and how this shapes experiences of citizenship for diverse residents across the settlement. A key contribution of this thesis is an analytical framework unpacking the ‘everyday politics of water’. This explores the ‘politics’ of how daily material practices around water are produced by, and productive of, gender, ethnic, or tenure relations. This is set against wider urban trends unfolding in Kathmandu, including environmental and demographic change, gender relations and social norms, and policy and programmatic approaches of the water sector. This thesis particularly offers a contribution in linking these scales—bridging the analysis of urban drivers in Kathmandu with a deeper analysis of how localized social and power relations are negotiated through water. This notion of everyday politics is secondly linked with a feminist reading of urban citizenship. The thesis claims that everyday negotiations around water are linked with citizenship values including recognition, redistribution, solidarity, and self- determination. This supports an analysis of water interventions beyond the technical ‘nuts and bolts’ of provision, to a deeper understanding of the broader embodied, discursive or symbolic role water infrastructure plays, and how this shapes citizenship experiences for diverse individuals. Eight months of qualitative and participatory field research in Bansighat, Kathmandu, is presented in three analytical chapters across scale: city, community, and body/household. Each chapter takes as its entry point two different material practices, demonstrating how these are underpinned by different values or perceptions, and how this in turn reflects or remakes social relations. In doing so, this thesis explores how social-power relations are related to: belonging in the city (chapter 5), participation in water management and community life (chapter 6), and how water is accessed across public and intimate spaces, and by diverse bodies (chapter 7). Ultimately this develops a rich portrait of the ways in which diverse residents relate to water, as well as to citizenship. Impact Statement This thesis is anticipated have an impact both within academia and for practitioners working with urban services for low-income residents. In particular, this thesis was conceived within the space opened by the international focus on community-based, decentralised and participatory approaches to urban services management. Such approaches have been touted as making a critical contribution to service delivery, as well as in relation to wider goals—including democratic practice, empowerment, or citizenship. While acknowledging this link, this thesis stems from the assertion that institutional responses to water provision (often focused on securing improvements in material access and/or representation in local organizations) must also take into account the sets of social and power relations which influence how people relate to different water infrastructures. Accordingly, this thesis presents a framework (of everyday politics) as a way to make visible and analyse some of these relations. Conceptually, this thesis therefore holds impact with wider academic literature which has sought to explore an intersectional analysis of development interventions, offering an analytical lens which can be applied elsewhere. Furthermore, the application of this framework to the case study context also generated a number of practical reflections and recommendations related to equitable water provision Kathmandu, which are detailed within each analytical chapter, as well as in the conclusions of this work. Beyond the contributions embedded within this text, the research process was in of itself linked with the ongoing advocacy of partner organizations Guthi and Mahila Ekta Samaj. To this end, a photography exhibition and several action-planning workshops were held at the completion of field research. This resulted in the production of a ‘Water Charter’ with residents from settlements across the city, presented to municipal and utility authorities. This Charter and the photographs produced for the exhibition continue to form a part of ongoing advocacy for these partners on the ground. Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 SITUATING THE RESEARCH 3 1.1.1 THEORETICAL INFLUENCES 4 1.1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 11 1.1.3 EMPIRICAL FOCUS 13 1.2 THESIS STRUCTURE 14 CHAPTER 2 ‘EVERYDAY POLITICS’ AND INFRASTRUCTURAL CITIZENSHIP: BUILDING A CONCEPT 17 2.1 INTRODUCTION 17 2.2 BUILDING A DEFINITION OF CITIZENSHIP 18 2.2.1 LIBERAL CITIZENSHIP IN FLUX 19 2.2.2 NEW DEFINITIONS OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP 21 2.2.3 CITIZENSHIP VALUES 28 2.3 THE INFRASTRUCTURAL TURN 30 2.3.1 GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF INFRASTRUCTURE 34 2.3.2 GENDER AND INFRASTRUCTURAL PRACTICES: THREE MYTHS 36 2.3.3 A NEW AGENDA 41 2.4 THE ‘EVERYDAY POLITICS OF WATER’: CITIZENSHIP AND SERVICES 42 2.4.1 EVERYDAY PRACTICES 42 2.4.2 EVERYDAY POLITICS AND POWER 45 2.4.3 THE EVERYDAY POLITICS OF WATER AND INFRASTRUCTURAL CITIZENSHIP 48 2.5 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 52 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 59 3.1 INTRODUCTION 59 3.2 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE 61 3.2.1 FOUR RESEARCH PRINCIPALS 62 3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN 66 3.3.1 STAGING OF THE RESEARCH 67 3.3.2 SAMPLING STRATEGY 71 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS 72 3.5 ANONYMIZING IDENTITY 74 3.6 INTERPRETIVE AUTHORITY 75 3.6.1 TRIANGULATION 75 3.6.2 SPEAKING FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE MARGINALIZED 76 3.6.3 MEMBER AND EXPERT CHECKING 77 3.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 77 3.7.1 NEGOTIATING PARTNERSHIPS 78 3.7.2 BUILDING TRUST WITH THE RESEARCH ASSISTANT 81 3.7.3 ENGAGING THE CONTRADICTIONS, CONSTRUCTING THE CRITIQUE 83 3.7.4 NAVIGATING INTERNAL POWER RELATIONS AND RISK 85 3.7.5 CONTRIBUTING TO A CHANGE PROCESS 88 3.8 CONCLUSION 93 CHAPTER 4 CONTEXT 94 4.1 INTRODUCTION 94 4.2 SOCIAL IDENTITY AND DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION IN NEPAL 96 4.2.1 NEPAL’S POLITICAL TRANSITION 96 4.2.2 IDENTITY POLITICS IN NEPAL TODAY 99 4.3 KATHMANDU URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND WATER POLICY 102 4.3.1 KATHMANDU VALLEY URBAN DEVELOPMENT 102 4.3.2 KATHMANDU VALLEY WATER SCENARIO 108 4.4 KATHMANDU INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS 116 4.4.1 A SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS 116 4.4.2 RIGHTS AND RECOGNITION 118 4.4.3 ‘FAKE SQUATTERS’ 120 4.4.4 ADVOCACY WORK 122 4.5 BANSIGHAT: A CASE STUDY SETTLEMENT 125 4.5.1 A BRIEF HISTORY 125 4.5.2 BANSIGHAT TODAY 128 4.6 CONCLUSION 132 CHAPTER 5 THE EVERYDAY POLITICS OF BELONGING 134 5.1 INTRODUCTION 134 5.2 COMPETING VISIONS OF BELONGING 135 5.3 EVERYDAY POLITICS OF BELONGING 139 5.3.1 MATERIAL PRACTICE 1: DEMONSTRATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOUR AND PERCEPTIONS OF ‘DEVELOPMENT’ 139 5.3.2 MATERIAL PRACTICE 2: STRATEGIC BILL PAYMENTS ON SERVICES AND PERCEPTIONS OF ‘SECURITY’ 145 5.3.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL RELATIONS: THE MAKING OF THE ‘ECOLOGICAL’ AND THE POLLUTING RESIDENT 153 5.3.4 BELONGING IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT VISIONS 162 5.4 CITIZENSHIP
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