Living in a city without water: A social practice theory analysis of resource disruption in Gaborone, Botswana

Abstract

Abstract Using social practice theory, this study examines what happens to everyday household water-use practices when water in a city stops flowing, as it did in Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone in 2015. Our study investigates changes in the conventions of cleanliness, comfort and convenience and how water-use practices evolved, and spread and how old practices were revived in times of need. Our research illustrates how water supply infrastructure shapes and separates daily water-use practices such as washing, bathing and cooking within the household and locks-in a co-evolution of unsustainable supply and demand. Our analysis brings into view the container technologies that became essential for survival and identifies the possibilities and challenges of containers for reconnecting water and water-use practices within the household. It is concluded that residents of Gaborone were highly adaptable and resourceful in reconfiguring new water-use practices, but would have coped better if water managers had been more supportive of co-provision and provided advice and support for safe household water sourcing and storage. With the limitations of large-scale supply-driven water infrastructure increasingly evident, and resilience often focused simply on household water tanks, this research highlights the potential for (re)designing container technologies within the household to (re)connect water-use practices and hold, slow down, redirect and re-use different types of water, rather than the single-use paradigm of using drinking quality water for every task in a way that allows that high quality water to simply drain away.