The politics of plumbing & water

CIVICS AND COMMERCEEpisode 5 — The Plumbing BusinessShow notesThe story in this episode is composite, drawn from real events. Identifying details are changed. Real-world events the story draws on, full citations, and further reading are below.REAL-WORLD EVENTS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODEAustralia- Chronic sanitation infrastructure failures in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, documented across Closing the Gap reporting and Australian National Audit Office reviews over decades.- The Australian plumbing trade workforce, including apprenticeship intake programs and ongoing political contests about vocational training funding and the role of the public training system.Pakistan- The Orangi Pilot Project (OPP), founded in Karachi in 1980 by social scientist Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan.- Community-led construction of low-cost underground sewerage by residents of one of Asia's largest informal settlements, when the municipal government would not extend services.- The OPP's component-sharing model has since been studied and replicated globally, including through World Habitat Awards recognition.United States- Catherine Coleman Flowers and her work in Lowndes County, Alabama, documenting raw sewage and tropical disease in poor, predominantly Black communities of the American South.- The 2017 peer-reviewed study finding more than one in three Lowndes County residents tested positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite long thought to have been eradicated from the United States.- Flowers's 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, her book Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret, and the federal civil rights investigation into Lowndes County concluded in 2023.International- United Nations General Assembly Resolution 64/292 of 28 July 2010, recognising water and sanitation as human rights.- The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, producing country reports for more than a decade.REFERENCES[1] United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 64/292, "The Human Right to Water and Sanitation" (adopted 28 July 2010). https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/687002Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation." https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-sanitation[2] Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995). https://www.routledge.com/Imperial-Leather-Race-Gender-and-Sexuality-in-the-Colonial-Contest/McClintock/p/book/9780415908900[3] Akhtar Hameed Khan, Orangi Pilot Project: Reminiscences and Reflections (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996).Arif Hasan, Akhtar Hameed Khan and the Orangi Pilot Project (Karachi: City Press, 1999).Orangi Pilot Project. https://oppoct.wordpress.comWorld Habitat, "Orangi Low-cost Housing and Sanitation Programme." https://world-habitat.org/awards/winners/orangi-low-cost-housing-and-sanitation-programme/[4] Catherine Coleman Flowers, Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret (New York: The New Press, 2020). https://thenewpress.com/books/wasteMegan L. McKenna et al., "Human Intestinal Parasite Burden and Poor Sanitation in Rural Alabama," American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 97, no. 5 (8 November 2017): 1623-1628. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.17-0396Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. https://creej.org[5] Closing the Gap. Annual reports. https://www.closingthegap.gov.auRoss S. Bailie and Kayli Wayte, "Housing and Health in Indigenous Communities," Australian Journal of Rural Health 14, no. 5 (2006): 178-183.[6] National Skills Commission, Australian Government, "Plumber: Labour Market Insights." https://www.jobsandskills.gov.auMaster Plumbers Australia. https://www.masterplumbers.com.auFURTHER READINGAnne McClintock, Imperial Leather (1995). On nineteenth-century imperialism and the political coding of soap, plumbing, and sanitation as markers of civilisation.Akhtar Hameed Khan, Orangi Pilot Project: Reminiscences and Reflections (1996). The founder's own account of one of the world's most studied community-led sanitation programs.Catherine Coleman Flowers, Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret (2020). Environmental justice advocate on sanitation as a continuation of racial geography in the United States.McKenna et al., "Human Intestinal Parasite Burden and Poor Sanitation in Rural Alabama" (2017). The peer-reviewed study that re-introduced hookworm to the American sanitation conversation.Arif Hasan, Akhtar Hameed Khan and the Orangi Pilot Project (1999). Biography and analysis from one of OPP's closest collaborators.About the hostLiv Roe is a civic and political adviser based in Melbourne. She works with businesses, organisations, and individuals on the political and civic context of their work. Book a consultation at livroe.org. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit civicsandcommerce.substack.com