Hydro-Social Permutations of Water Commodification in Blantyre City, Malawi A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2014 Isaac M.K. Tchuwa School of Environment Education and Development Table of Contents Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ 2 List of Figures ................................................................................................................. 6 List of Tables ................................................................................................................... 7 List of Graphs ................................................................................................................. 7 List of Photos .................................................................................................................. 8 List of Maps .................................................................................................................... 9 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 10 Declaration .................................................................................................................... 11 Copyright Statement .................................................................................................... 12 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 14 Chapter1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 17 1.1 Charting thesis rationale ....................................................................................... 17 1.2 Research context .................................................................................................... 28 1.3 Structure of the thesis ............................................................................................ 43 Chapter2: Theoretical and Methodological Framework: Inquiring into Capitalist Remaking of Hydro-social Relations through a Historical Geographical Materialist Perspective ......................................................................... 45 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 45 2.2 Historical geographical materialism and the critical theorisation of waterscapes .................................................................................................................. 46 2.2.1.1 Capitalist urbanisation of nature/space and the process of commodification .......................................................................................................... 50 2 2.2.2 The ideological nature of the state, capital and the commodification of socionature .................................................................................................................... 53 2.3 Research Methodology ......................................................................................... 57 2.3.1 Research Approach .............................................................................................. 58 2.3.1.1 Primary research and selection of field sites ................................................. 59 2.3.1.2 Negotiating access to the field, primary data collection and my awkward multiple positionalities in the research process ....................................... 63 2.3.1.2.1 The challenge of making sense of collected primary material .................. 69 2.3.1.3 Secondary research and its conundrums ....................................................... 71 2.3.2 Inclusions and omissions in the research process ............................................. 75 Chapter3: A Political Ecology of Early Colonial Remaking of Blantyre’s Waterscape (1850s to the late 1890s) ........................................................................... 78 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 78 3.2 Early moments of colonial urbanisation of water in Blantyre (late 1850s on- wards) ........................................................................................................................... 81 3.2.1 The logic of capital and producing a fractured watering of the colonial Town .............................................................................................................................. 93 3.2.1.1 Race, class and the privatisation of access to colonial water and sanitation services in Blantyre .................................................................................. 102 3.2.2 Money, modern technology and early colonial remaking of hydro-social relations in Blantyre ................................................................................................... 109 3.3 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................. 116 Chapter4: Colonial Modernisation, its Contradictions and Shifting Frontiers towards Institutional Centralisation of Water Governance in Blantyre (late 1890s- 1950s) ............................................................................................................... 120 3 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 120 4.2 Towards Institutional centralisation of the water urbanisation process in Blantyre (late 1890s to 1920s) .................................................................................... 122 4.3 The colonial administration seeks to intervene…and the further commodification of Blantyre’s waterscape (1920s to 1950s) .................................. 142 4.3.1 Blantyre Town Council vs. state contestations around the water boring project and its hydro-social implications ................................................................. 153 4.4 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................. 163 Chapter5: ‘Decolonised’ Blantyre and the Enduring Legacies of the Logics and Contradictions of Colonial Remaking of Blantyre’s Waterscape (1964 onwards) 166 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 166 5.2 Shifting political frontiers and the enduring legacy of the colonial logics of modernising Blantyre ............................................................................................... 168 5.2.1 The Walkers Ferry Scheme and enduring ties of colonial dependency ........ 175 5.3 Blantyre Water Board (BWB), dependency on borrowed technologies and its discontents ............................................................................................................ 183 5.3.1 The hydro-social consequences of technological dependency ...................... 190 5.3.1.1 Inability to respond to market forces and its long-term hydro-social consequences ............................................................................................................. 195 5.3.2 Rising production costs at BWB and unaffordable water that hardly flows 211 5.4 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................. 219 Chapter6: Complex Social-Geographies of Water Access in Contemporary Blantyre ....................................................................................................................... 223 6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 223 4 6.2 Reaffirming the “everyday” in urban water political ecology ........................ 224 6.2.1 Daily struggles for water in Contemporary Blantyre: a case of Bangwe and Manase Townships ............................................................................................. 227 6.2.1.1 Complex permutations of water access in Manase and Bangwe ............... 232 6.2.1.1.1 The irony of having a private water connection without water in Bangwe ....................................................................................................................... 235 6.2.1.1.2 Water that is never free in Manase Township .......................................... 243 6.3 Chapter Conclusion ............................................................................................. 254 Chapter7: ‘Non-privatised’ Water as a Commodity in Contemporary Blantyre .. 256 7.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 256 7.2 Urbanised Water as a Commodity ..................................................................... 257 7.2.1 On the power of money and the commodification of free water sources in Bangwe ........................................................................................................................ 259 7.2.2 Of Broken dreams of a modern home and extracting rent from water in Bangwe ........................................................................................................................ 263 7.3 Water charity or water commodity: the commodification of kiosks and communal water pumps in Manase and Bangwe .................................................. 270 7.3.1 Kiosks and commodification of water in Manase ..........................................