Bas van Vliet

Conclusion and Discussion

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Chinese government started to introduce a series of policies explicitly aimed at farmers’ rural–urban migration. This research has sought to examine how migrant workers cope with problems under policy intervention. These different strategies are categorized into a typology of “coping” which includes administrative coping, political coping, and social coping, as well as the main corresponding coping resources: government policy, power of civil groups, and social networks, respectively. Empirical data show making a claim under migration policies is not commonly found among migrant workers, in other words, administrative coping is not widely adopted by migrant workers. Instead, social coping is the most adopted one by migrant workers; meanwhile, political coping is an emerging coping strategy in Chinese society. Therefore, there is still a long way to go and much to do in order to ensure migrant workers benefit from migration polices in China.

Lifestyles, consumption and the environment: The ecological modernization of domestic consumption

Ecological modernisation theory has been developed so far mainly with respect to the production sphere. In order to apply the theory to the sphere of consumption, it needs to be enriched with some of the central concepts from the sociology of consumption. What results is a contextual model of (domestic) consumption which combines an actor‐oriented approach with a system‐of‐provision perspective of consumer behaviour. In conclusion, the relevance of the proposed model for research on the ecological modernisation of domestic consumption is discussed.

Niche Management and its Contribution to Regime Change: The Case of Innovation in Sanitation

Abstract Strategic niche management (SNM) implies that new technologies are applied in so-called niches, in which they are protected against mainstream market selection. A major question currently subject to debate is through which processes niches can bring about any wider changes at the level of socio-technical regimes. This paper examines this question, using present-day developments in innovation in sanitation in Western Europe as an example. It is concluded that although SNM theorists emphasize the importance of (first- and second-order) learning, such learning processes are often hampered in practice. This may be due to the fact that existing niche-based approaches put too much emphasis on technological experimentation rather than on experimentation with forms of social organization. Therefore, attention should be redirected to sustainability concepts and guiding principles rather than technologies. As an addition to existing approaches, the authors suggest and elaborate on a new form of niche management called conceptual niche management.

Social Perspectives on the Sanitation Challenge

In developed countries the sanitation challenge is to initiate a transition from strongly centralized, water-based infrastructure regimes towards more sustainable, source-separation oriented, sanitation regimes. This calls for social scientific research and demonstration on different levels and scales, including concept development, institutional learning and governance building. In the developing world the sanitation challenge is to provide sanitation services to the poor and the very poor, without compromising on sustainability. New configurations employing the best practices of sanitation technology and management for rural and urban contexts are needed. The sanitation challenge in both worlds is to go beyond traditional dichotomies between ‘small, appropriate’ and ‘modern/advanced’ technologies and to develop rural and urban sanitation with a mix of scales, strategies, technologies, payment systems and decision-making structures, that better fit the physical and human systems for which they are designed.

New consumer roles in waste water management

Network‐bound systems such as water and energy systems are increasingly confronted with environmental problems that cannot be solved without changing their modes of provision. More than any other flow provided through a network‐bound system, the waste water flow comes very close to intimate personal and social life, complicating the introduction of environmental innovations in this sector. Using the concepts of trust and identity, questions concerning changing consumer roles in two cases of Decentralised Sanitation and Reuse Systems in the Netherlands are addressed. In both cases the building of trust within provider networks and between consumers and providers, as well as the possibility for consumers and providers to identify themselves with the aims of the project were key factors determining the success or failure of environmental innovations in waste water flows.

Environmental systems and local actors: decentralizing environmental policy in Uganda.

In Uganda, environmental and natural resource management is decentralized and has been the responsibility of local districts since 1996. This environmental management arrangement was part of a broader decentralization process and was intended to increase local ownership and improve environmental policy; however, its implementation has encountered several major challenges over the last decade. This article reviews some of the key structural problems facing decentralized environmental policy in this central African country and examines these issues within the wider framework of political decentralization. Tensions have arisen between technical staff and politicians, between various levels of governance, and between environmental and other policy domains. This review offers a critical reflection on the perspectives and limitations of decentralized environmental governance in Uganda. Our conclusions focus on the need to balance administrative staff and local politicians, the mainstreaming of local environmental policy, and the role of international donors.

End User Perspectives on the Transformation of Sanitary Systems

In various Western European countries pilot projects have been set-up in which new waste water management technologies are being experimented in a domestic setting. Domestic end-users often play a crucial role in these projects: ranging from being the main initiators to being the key factor in their collapse. This chapter presents a theoretical appreciation of end-user roles and perspectives in sanitary niche experiments, and develops a toolkit to better understand and experiment with end-user roles and perspectives in new sanitation projects. Subsequently, this theoretical framework is used to analyze two pilot projects in the Netherlands (Sneek and Culemborg). The chapter concludes that an end-user view is instrumental in getting demonstration projects realized as it opens up new ways to link sanitary solutions to end-users’ socio-cultural concerns. Furthermore, such an end-user view allows for the successful development and implementation of new sanitation concepts, linking sanitation systems and end-users in various ways.

The consolidation of deep tube well technology in safe drinking water provision: the case of arsenic mitigation in rural Bangladesh

This paper explains why and how deep tube well as a safe drinking water technology has become dominant in mitigating the arsenic crisis in rural Bangladesh. We do so by applying insights from the Multi-Level Perspective on transitions in explaining changes in the safe socio-technical drinking water regime in rural Bangladesh. Data about seven dimensions of regime change were gathered from key actors through in-depth interviews, focus groups sessions, a survey, and a workshop. The findings reveal that with the introduction of deep tube well as an arsenic mitigation technology, the observed changes in the seven dimensions help to transform the existing safe drinking water regime in order to re-stabilise it. Technological attributes, symbolic meaning, industry structures, and techno-scientific knowledge have supported an evolving dominance of the deep tube well. Besides, user practices as well as related infrastructures have adapted to the use of deep tube wells, and new policies stimulated its application. We argue that the dimensions of the technology change in the existing regime are consistent with the features of incremental innovation. By offering such insights, we show the relevance of the Multi-Level Perspective on transitions to analyse socio-technical innovation in a developing world context.

Reconsidering Urban Sewer and Treatment Facilities in East Africa as Interplay of Flows, Networks and Spaces

Urbanization has brought about concentrations of people in densely populated settlements, resulting in the generation of waste water that needs to be disposed off in a hygienic way to avoid the outbreak of diseases. Decisions on what area to sewer, the nature of sewer schemes and treatment works to be used, and the kind of collection and transport system to adopt is often complex and difficult to make. This chapter (re)considers urban sewers and treatment works as the interplay of flows, networks and spaces, and puts forward a conceptual framework for decision-making. It examines current and future sanitation structures in Kampala and Kisumu in terms of sanitation flows, sanitary networks and demands for space. Knowledge of such sanitation structures serves as an input to the assessment of opportunities for so-called Modernized Mixtures of sanitation systems in cities around Lake Victoria.

Sense and Sanitation

Historically, sanitation infrastructures have been designed to do away with sensory experiences. As in the present phase of modernity the senses are assigned a crucial role in the perception of risks, a paradigm shift has emerged in the infrastructural provision of energy, water and waste services. This has led to a partial re-localization and resensitization of services. Present systems are designed to make the invisible visible again. This chapter analyzes what these tendencies mean for waste water and sanitation service provision. It outlines the paradigm shifts being made in infrastructural provision and its consequences for the senses, using case studies of sanitation innovation in Europe to illustrate new dynamics in the display and perception of sanitation infrastructures. Based on a theoretical discussion of sensitization of infrastructural service provisions, a framework is presented for analyzing the possible relationships between senses and sanitation.