Manoj Roy (Lancaster University), Roger Pickup (Lancaster University) and Suresh Kumar Rohilla (University of Bradford) are submitting a proposal for an organised session at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, UK, 27–29 August 2025. The session will be entitled Publishing through the community: Advances in interactive research on informal sanitation and a call is currently open for abstracts. There is potential for this to be hybrid session (online & in-person).
Submission information
Please email abstracts of 250 words by 21st February 2025 to m.roy1@lancaster.ac.uk, r.pickup@lancaster.ac.uk, or s.k.rohilla@bradford.ac.uk. The abstracts could describe academic papers/ artistic products (drama, videos, etc.) that will be presented/ shown/performed. They will get back by 28th February 2025 with acceptance decision.
Session overview
It builds on a forthcoming publication series by IWA Publishing on this theme. Selected contributions to this session will ‘visualise’ how their work interacts with and transforms the understanding of the community (broadly defined) in real/ proximate time. Visualisation could be artistic, analytic, or narrative. Authors will have an opportunity to publish in the IWA series.
Conceptually, as this WHO [1] slogan (No research about us without us…) implicates, knowledge production must capacitate the knowledge bearers. This tradition of ‘involving lay people’ in research marks an ‘interaction turn’ in knowledge production [2]. The meaningful participation of various social actors as ‘subjects of knowledge’ introduces a richer representation of the issues and their possible solutions. This process can address three concerns of development research: a democratic (lay people have the right to participate), an epistemic (legitimate interlocutors capable of influencing epistemic/methodological definitions), and a knowledge reproduction and add-ons (they are capacitated to interpret conditions, changes, and responses to problems).
Thematically, over a billion people globally currently rely on informal sanitation [3], and their number is increasing at a rate faster than the rise in access to basic sanitation [4]. There are four persistent issues concerning informal sanitation: collective action challenge, coproduction challenge, challenge of affordability vs acceptability, and challenge related to tenure [5]. Given such intractability, informal sanitation issues are a ‘wicked’ problem [6]. Research must approach informal sanitation differently to optimising the benefits of research on the people, places, and processes that directly contribute to the research. The growing trend of locally led strategies by research institutions [7] is an opportunity to advance the interaction turns.
Guiding questions
These are suggestive; other pertinent questions are welcome.
- What multiple knowledge systems do informal sanitation issues entail?
- Who are ‘communities’ in this context and what form of interaction works for whom?
- What epistemic/methodological influences does the involvement of lay people result in?
- What level of knowledge reproduction/add-ons can interactive research result?
- What tensions and challenges do interactive research pose and how to address them?
Bibliography
- WHO, 2012. No research about us without us: why research capacity strengthening is essential to health for all
- Mazzitelli M G, Zeballos C & Bozzo M B, 2023. Interaction turns in knowledge production: actors, problems and methodologies
- Satterthwaite D, Archer D, Colenbrander S, et al., 2020. Building resilience to climate change in informal settlements
- Sprouse L, Lebu S, Nguyen J, et al., 2024. Shared sanitation in informal settlements: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence, preferences, and quality
- McGranahan G, 2015. Realizing the Right to Sanitation in Deprived Urban Communities: Meeting the Challenges of Collective Action, Coproduction, Affordability, and Housing Tenure
- Abdulhadi R, Bailey A & Noorloos F V, 2024. Access inequalities to WASH and housing in slums in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): A scoping review
- FCDO, 2023. UK Dialogue on Locally Led Humanitarian Action: Report