Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an ethnographic study of two urban communities in Germany that have developed an alternative and decentralised water and sanitation system; it asks how these socio-material networks relate to questions of cost-saving, technology, and sustainability.

Paper long abstract:

In Germany, rising costs for the renewal of over-dimensional or obsolete water-infrastructure systems, demographic change, imposed austerity measures and awareness of scarce resources have lead to criticism towards expensive, centralised water infrastructure systems (cf. Lange/Otterpohl 2000, Hoyer/Dickhaut 2011). As in many other places worldwide, new technological systems were developed to enable more sustainable sanitation in urban areas. These alternative systems keep the water cycle within smaller localities and focus on recycling wastewater for new uses such as energy generation. They often deploy a combination of traditional and highly complex technologies and involve an wide spectrum of actors ranging from research institutions, engineers, local politicians, alternative urban movements, low-tech pioneers, as well as luxury residential settlements. These socio-material networks link new technologies and social communities and enact discourses and imaginations that combine topoi such as cost-saving, self-sufficiency, and sustainability to propose an alternative to centralised water infrastructure systems.

This paper shares the results of an ethnographic study of two communities that share a decentralised sanitation system in light of the topics posed above. The results of the study provide an opportunity to compare challenges and rationales facing contemporary water and sanitation provision worldwide. The study is part of a larger research project called Low-Budget Urbanity hosted at the HafenCity University Hamburg, which observes urban transformations in times of austerity (www.low-budget-urbanity.de).