This paper critically examines the role of sewage infrastructure in the production of public and private lives.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing inspiration from two brief periods of fieldwork in the bourgeoning town of Darjeeling, India, this paper discusses how sewage infrastructure has come to shape public and private lives and public and private space since the installation of the Paris sewers in the mid 19th century. In recognising that 'modern' sewage infrastructure was built on particular prescriptive (European) ideas of how public and private life and space should operate, this paper asks: what kinds of (post)colonial worlds does sewage infrastructure propose? And how are these worlds crumbling amid the crisis' that the Anthropocene presents?