ABSTRACT
Global planning and governance take minority world sanitation structures as the norm. But water-based, individualized sanitation structures contribute to “flush it away” mentalities that inhibit clear-minded consideration of alternatives. Global elites accustomed to not having to deal with their own or others’ waste make decisions about water and sanitation infrastructure according to their own embodied norms of waste. The “hard infrastructure” of water-based sanitation systems based on individual private households flushing countless liters of drinking water through sewage systems are known to be problematic, but such systems continue to be rolled out. This chapter explores alternatives to water-based sanitation in the minority and majority world, centering the “soft infrastructures” of embodied practice that have often been the responsibility of women. In particular, it details the practice of infant toileting in China and Australia, and the implications for such a practice in habituating infants and caregivers to diverse kinds of embodied relationships with human waste. What would it mean for water governance if soft infrastructures of care were fully considered alongside hard infrastructures?
