Water, Sanitation and Culture

(Adapted from SCHELWALD & REIJERKERK 2009 and WARNER et al. 2008)

Among experts, the impact of societal and cultural aspects related to the use and the reuse of water and to human excreta is unquestioned. Technical concepts imported to another region without considering the cultural context have too often caused failure. Local beliefs, traditions and practices, but also gender and generational differences have hence become a decisive factor in planning and operating of water and sanitation.

The cultural context of the users may act as an enabling factor or as a counteracting force for good water management. By assessing cultural backgrounds of the users, one can raise ownership and increase the potential of success, or, on the other hand, mitigate risks of failure. Failure could mean that systems are not used, or worse, are sabotaged.

To consider beliefs and traditional practices becomes even more evident when promoting the treatment of excreta for further use, as claimed by sustainable sanitation and IWRM concepts. Different groups of people have varying, culturally determined relations to human excreta, which affect the acceptance of their treatment.

Water and culture

(Adapted from SCHELWALD & REIJERKERK 2009 and WARNER et al. 2008)

Any relations between people and their environment are embedded in culture (UNESCO 2003). Due to the elementary role of water for people’s life, the way to treat, handle and use water has ever been anchored in people’s cultural values and traditional practices. Therefore, we have to acknowledge that solutions which are developed and maintained by the local people themselves stand the best chance of long-term success of water and sanitation systems and sustainable resource management.

We can learn from the ways that cultures around the world have adapted themselves to living with water in different environments, quantities and qualities. The multitude of traditions coping with their particular climate and environment constitutes in itself a treasure of sustainable practices and innovative approaches to water management.

Culture is considered as a system of shared values, beliefs, behaviour and symbols that the members of society groups use to interact with their social surrounding. The way in which cultures manifest themselves is made tangible through three different categories and symbolised by the Nautilus shell:

Values, norms and beliefs form the core of any culture

They express feelings and affections e.g. towards what is dirty / clean. Often, they are based on historic circumstances, which do not correspond to today’s living environment any more.

 Examples:

• A river we classify as filthy and unhealthy may not be regarded as such by locals living adjacent to it. They might have adopted the belief that water from that river is healthy from their ancestors, when this was actually the case.Yet today, the perception of the water quality would not any more correspond to the reality. In brief, beliefs in water quality might persist even when one would think it is obvious to everybody that it is not anymore.

• In Islamic countries and many traditional cultures, according to cultural and religious belief, the water use should be free of charge. This makes it challenging to convince people to pay for water supply services.

Traditions, rituals and practices characterise a culture

Examples:

• The long-standing tradition of women and girls carrying buckets of water on their heads implies their responsibility to choose water sources along economic, quality and social criteria. It is also an important social event when women meet and communicate at the water sources (WIJK-SIJBESMA 1998).

• In a rural village in southern Africa, good quality drinking water was traditionally fetched at the river. When industrialisation and wastewater discharge upstream started to impair the water quality, waterborne diseases like diarrhoea started to increase. In order to improve the situation, a local NGO proposed to use sand filters: they are cheap, do not use electricity and can be made from locally available material. A good idea – as it seemed. However, the NGO had not taken into consideration cultural values of the community. Historically, they were used to only drink running water because in their experience water in stagnant pools was not doing any good to their health. And because water coming from a sand filter stands for a day while being processed, the users refused to drink it, although the water quality was very good.

• In the Netherlands, dykes were built and are maintained (“polder” system) in order to reclaim land from the sea on which to live and work. It has its place in national identity e.g. in literature.

• “Karez” or “Qanat” systems in arid regions (e.g. Afghanistan, Spain, and Atacama) are ancient underground irrigation systems which mitigate the problem of evaporation losses. The systems use gravity to bring ground water to the surface, usually far from the source.

• Rain dances in Africa or the U.S. that are performed to ensure water for people, cattle and crops.

Symbols and artefacts like expressions, stories, gestures or pictures are expressions of culture

Therefore, using culturally known symbols and stories to convey messages about water and sanitation can be of value especially in the education.

(Adapted from WARNER et al. 2008)

There are clear differences of attitudes towards the use of sanitation facilities and the handling of excreta between diverse cultures. Despite an instinctive repulsion towards excreta, our cultures influence our attitudes towards handling of excreta.This applies in special for sustainable sanitation as its operation and maintenance has a broader impact on people’s life (DRANGERT 2004).

A differentiation between people being more or less repelled by excreta is not possible along national boundaries. India,for example, is commonly referred to as a faecophobic culture (PEUSER 2009), where the Dalit cast (the Untouchables), living at the bottom of society are responsible for excreta removal (GNANAKAN 2008). On the other hand experiences have proved, that by establishing closed-loop sanitation systems, a change towards reducing cultural stigmatisation of faeces is possible too (HEEB & GNANAKAN 2008).In areas with predominant cultivation of land and little livestock farming (e.g. some areas in China), people realised the fertilising potential of human excreta and therefore developed more positive affinity towards it.

Even when poverty is being reduced and potable water available, cultural attitudes and social habits may impair people from the use or avoidance of infrastructure considered hygienic and sanitary by today’s standards. Hence hygiene promotion (e.g. through PHAST) in the context of introducing sanitation systems should always be considered.

(Adapted from: JENSSEN et al. 2004)

Religions vary considerably in addressing excreta. In the Bible, the act of elimination is men­tioned only once, and it does not address the subject of using excreta for agricul­tural purposes.

The Koran, however, prescribes strict procedures to limit contact with faecal material, including its use in agri­culture, because excrement is considered impure.

The principal Hindu text that details the code of conduct for rituals, the Artha Veda, clearly specifies the use of water for personal hygiene.

But nowhere do we find excrement included more in a religious context than in Buddhism. An integral dimension of Buddhism is rein­carnation, which promotes the harmoni­ous concept of recycling life’s treasures; it is therefore not surprising that Buddhist cultures treat earthly resources similarly.

Especially in developing countries, women are promoters, educators and leaders of home and community-based sanitation practices. But in water, sanitation and hygiene, women’s concerns are rarely addressed appropriately due to societal or cultural barriers (SuSanA 2009). Because the question which roles women can play within a social group is strongly determined by the conditions under which they live, their respective culture, the traditions and the education level in this social group (FALKENMARK 2005)(see also water sanitation and gender).

To respect the cultural context means taking into consideration not only religious and non-religious beliefs and values, traditional practices, but also how different cultural groups cope with gender and generational differences.Water and sanitation experts nowadays urge to take these contextual aspects into consideration. It should be part of the research, the planning & design phase and also the monitoring phase. But it is not only about considering these issues, but also about implementing them in the projects or programmes. Cultural competence is crucial for successful and sustainable implementation of project.

(A rather sophisticated concept to systematically assess and mitigate adverse cultural impacts of innovations and developments is the so called “cultural assessment technique”; see SAGNIA 2004).