IN UNCHARTERED WATERS...

The challenges of Writing about Africa:

For my first blog, I have chosen to convey some of the challenges that I have already encountered or anticipate encountering when it comes to writing about water and sanitation in Africa. I chose to write this as my first blog to hold myself accountable to the way in which I approach writing about water and sanitation in Africa throughout the course. It is only through listening and engaging to the lived reality of those without access to adequate sanitation that necessary, genuine knowledge can be created, on which solutions can be based. To do this, however, there is a need to overcome challenges of positionality, over-simplification and decolonising knowledge. 

 

The first challenge that I have encountered is the complexity of the problem. Wainaina (2006) uses satire to emphasise that "Africa is not one country, it is a continent, made up of different countries, each with its own identity." Within these countries, within cities and even within households, there will be differing relationships to water and sanitation. This presents the challenge of conveying the experiences of the One Billion people into a blog, which recognises the spectrum of water and sanitation within Africa.  It is a reminder that there is no ‘one-size fits all’ solution to such issues and that I should be aware of the risk of oversimplification and generalisation. Is it also important to question whose voices are being heard in the literature and more importantly, whose voices are not being heard?

 

Another challenge that I anticipate encountering is remembering the human element. It is all too easy to be sat at my desk in London and feel far removed from Africa, however, the death toll of those who die from diarrheal diseases acts as a stark reminder of the reality of the situation.  When it comes to suggestions for improvements, they need to be founded in accurate and relevant research. The lives of those in Africa who experience poor sanitation are not experimental. This is not to say that therefore we, as the West, should not be suggesting solutions, but instead to deeply consider what the impacts of a potential solution can be and ensure that they are based off a foundation of informed knowledge. This therefore suggests the importance of knowledge production when it comes to Africa. 

 

Africa and the West have a highly contentious, colonial past, and whilst physical colonialism no longer exists, Luseaka (2008) suggests that knowledge production practices are still rooted in colonialism. Wainaina (2006) is critical of the discourse which has dominated literature, lumping Africa together as, "One Country" and the mercy of, "The benevolence of the West." I therefore need to be aware of my own positionally and where I am obtaining my knowledge from. The very nature of knowledge production is not neutral as knowledge almost always reflects the interests of its creators and there are certain social and epistemological factors contribute to what is deemed a ‘successful’ knowledge claim. When researching for this blog, I did not have to look very far to see examples of the West imposing ‘knowledge’ on Africa.  I was able to find numerous examples of technological ‘solutions,’ designed by Western experts to water supply and sanitation issues which failed to meet the needs of the community they were designed to serve. Therefore, when writing and reading about Africa, I need to hold myself accountable to the knowledge to ensure that I am not buying into some of the colonial legacies of the WASH sector. One way in which I will do this, is to make sure that in each of my blogs, one of my sources is local knowledge, situated within Africa.

To conclude my first blog post, I hope to have conveyed the responsibility that I feel about writing about sanitation and water in Africa. Although I may be in uncharted waters, I am eager to listen, learn and engage with the literature and hopefully make a positive contribution.  I also feel that it is important to mention my own personal positionally, as I am half Sudanese. Although I have never been to Africa and I can’t speak Arabic, I have a deep connection to Africa and want to project the voices of those who are limited by access to water and poor sanitation onto a wider stage with humility and compassion.