Abstract
The inclusion of packaged drinking water (PDW) as a potentially improved source of safe drinking water under Goal 6.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) reflects its growing significance in cities where piped water has never been universal or safe for drinking. Using the case of PDW in Jakarta, Indonesia, we call for theorizing the politics of PDW through a situated Urban Political Ecology (UPE) analysis of the wider urban water distributions in which it is inserted. We do so in order to interrogate the unevenness of individual “choices” for securing safe drinking water, and highlight the ambiguity of PDW’s impact on inequalities in access. We first review research on PDW supply to specify how dominant theoretical approaches used for understanding PDW supply through analyses of the individual making “choices” for drinking water are power neutral, and why this matters for achieving equitable water access. We illustrate these points through a case study of PDW consumption by low income residents in Jakarta, and then identify how a situated UPE framework can help attend to the uneven societal relations shaping different socio-material conditions, within which individual “choices” for PDW are made. For Jakarta, connecting choices of the individual to power relations shaping geographies of urban water access and risk explains the rise in PDW consumption by low income residents as a situated response to the uneven exposure of poorer residents to environmental hazards. We conclude with reflections on how this can inform interventions towards more just distributions of safe drinking water.
Highlights
The Growth of Packaged Drinking Water SupplyIn 2008, packaged drinking water (PDW) became the drinking water supply for the majority of residents in the Indonesian capital city district of Jakarta [1]
This, we contend, conceals how PDW supply might redress or reproduce the unevenness of water access or water related risks. We explain this analytical gap as the result of the dominant approach to understanding PDW supply through an analysis of the individual making “choices” for PDW supply, disconnected from the wider societal processes and social relations shaping choices. We argue this power neutral analysis delimits understanding of how PDW supply relates to urban water inequalities to what can be identified through the individual, and addressed through the individual
In Accra, Ghana, public health research, which aimed to understand PDW supply through analysis of both individual and community level factors, still rooted its four hypotheses explaining choices for PDW in the analysis of the individual: demographics, water knowledge, attitudes, and other individual level factors [34]. This means that the understanding of PDW supply generated by public health research is power neutral, or what we identify as a-political
Summary
In 2008, packaged drinking water (PDW) became the drinking water supply for the majority of residents in the Indonesian capital city district of Jakarta [1]. This, we contend, conceals how PDW supply might redress or reproduce the unevenness of water access or water related risks We explain this analytical gap as the result of the dominant approach to understanding PDW supply through an analysis of the individual making “choices” for PDW supply, disconnected from the wider societal processes and social relations shaping choices. Is where we suggest a (re)theorizing of PDW supply can benefit from a situated Urban Political Ecology (UPE) analysis This approach holds power relations as central to explain how and why urban residents live in vastly unequal conditions—with differential access to water and exposure to environmental hazards—and what this means for the unevenness of choices on how to secure safe drinking water. Our identification of the politics of choices for securing safe water concealed by dominant explanations for PDW supply is supported by empirical data collected over this period, but is informed by our previous research on the politics of water supply in the city [14,17,18,19]
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