De-centering the urban waterscape via patterns, relations and traces of drinking water quality in Kaolack, Senegal

Abstract

Scholars studying urban water governance have used the concept of the waterscape to describe how unequal urban environments are constructed in ways that are deeply connected to power, knowledge, materiality, and social relations. Yet in many cases, these works have tended to prioritise access to water and neglect the role of water quality in co-producing urban waterscapes. Therefore in this article I show, using grounded ethnographic description of the urban waterscape of Kaolack, Senegal, the potential to consider drinking water quality as an active participant in webs of relations that impact on the urban environment in multiple ways. This article is based on eight months of qualitative data collection in Kaolack, a medium-sized city where drinking water quality has long been viewed as problematic due to high levels of salt and fluoride. I use an everyday urban perspective to demonstrate how a range of actors understand and respond to quality, with impacts on the urban waterscape that I categorise as patterns, relations, and traces. Such an approach draws attention to varied scales and dimensions of water (in)security, from within households to beyond the boundaries of the city.