The weight of water injustice

Violence.  When we think of the word, our mind often wanders to images of fighting and war. But this week's blog presents an alternative understanding of 'violence': symbolic. It imagines a concept that is embedded within gendered roles; that which is led by the State and materialises through infrastructure. Arguably, violence can be silent and socially accepted.   Rogers and O’Neill understand discrimination as operative through broken, absent or disconnected infrastructure. By distinguishing between those who have access to a safe, nearby water supply and those who don’t, the State maps which citizens are of low social significance, poor economic background and weak political visibility.  Across African space and time, such infrastructural violence has targeted women; the second-class citizens of society. Absent or broken supplies condition females to daily walks for water. This is particularly true for rural women, establishing a rural-urban divide that demonstrates t...

The title of this week’s blog leads me to the debate of accessibility Vs availability. In 1984, the song ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ was recorded by Band Aid, later sung at Live Aid in 1985, in attempt to raise money for famine relief in Africa. The concert raked in $127 million and remains an acclaimed moment in musical history. In 2019, ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ was voted the UK’s 8th favourite Christmas song of all time.  Source:  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/midgeure/dotheyknowitschristmas.html The lyrics should be scrutinised for a number of reasons. Firstly - following on from my opening blog - the representation of Africa is premised upon eurocentrism. This is particularly alarming considering that the song remains a national favourite, suggesting that Britain has done little to disengage from colonial beliefs. Further, Band Aid epitomises the white saviour complex of the West ; sustaining the binary distinction between 'us' and 'them' that was establ...

“If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.” -  Teju Cole The construction of Africa exists to satisfy the needs of White people. Whether it be tragic stories of hunger and disease - that White people can pity - or appalling accounts of human rights abuses - which White people are dissociated from - the Western world is there to save the day. White people become the heroes of their own narrative. WorldVision’s campaign, ‘ Walk for Water ’, perfectly depicts this. The Christian NGO compares the lives of two five year olds’ in West Pokot County, Kenya. One boy has access to a nearby well, whilst the other has to walk long journeys with his mother in order to reach an open-surface body of water. Understandably, the child with access to water has been saved by infrastructure that was implemented by WorldVision. The charity depicts a tale in which its White Saviour complex can be inserted.   Alarmingly, the campaign mater...