Contribution short abstract

This communication aims to contribute to a debate by comparing research on two metropolitan areas, in order to move beyond a specialization on water insecurity in cities in the Global South and to recognize forms of water insecurity in cities in the Global North.

Contribution long abstract

The issue of drinking water infrastructure is not limited to the consumption of beverage. While access to drinking water is obviously vital for human-beings, water is also used for other purposes such as washing oneselves, belongings, and clothes, in addition to sanitation. In this regard, I believe it is relevant to include these elements in the discussion on the challenges of living in a context of water scarcity.

My work is based on two case studies that contribute to our understanding of water scarcity in seemingly very different contexts. I will first discuss the case of Jakarta, a metropolis marked by the colonial legacy of its water supply network and its expansion since 1945. Fieldwork carried out aims to categorize the connected spaces, as well as the types of connections. The purpose here is to show how the connection methods overlap with the inherited colonial hierarchies, which is reinforced by the management methods imposed by the privatization of the water service from 1998 to 2022 (financing methods, stakeholders…). This work is put into perspective with a research conducted in Lyon, a so-called developed city. Here too, access to water is uneven. Based on a study of access to public showers (public or social establishments), the objective is to recognize the modalities of water insecurity: beneficiaries, volunteers, and structures are also part of social relationships marked by colonial legacies between those who help and those who are helped, renewed by the migration system, which reveals the reproduction of colonial relations.