Sanitation configurations in Lilongwe: Everyday experiences on and off the grid

Abstract

Scholars have called for increased attention to the practices through which residents of southern cities create and use infrastructure. The failures and disruptions of many particular artefacts have meant that people often develop multiple ways to access water, electricity, or transportation, even if all of them have limitations. For sanitation, thinking through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations can help us to see connections between toilets, and the reasons for maintaining access to different types of toilets, given their different risks and benefits. In this paper, we focus on plots in Lilongwe with both indoor flush-toilets and backyard latrines, and the lived experiences of people as they navigate choices about the use of these toilets. The presence of on and off-grid toilets is rooted in colonial urban form, yet is perpetuated – and proliferates in new places – as residents face a number of constraints, including most recently recurrent water shortages due to droughts. We consider both how this configuration challenges official imaginaries of urban sanitation, and how it helps residents to address different risks and sanitation needs. Drawing on the experience of Lilongwe, we reflect on what can be learnt from this heterogeneous infrastructural configuration in terms of planning for more resilient water and sanitation services in Global South cities and beyond.

Introduction

For decades, urban and sanitation planners have tended to prioritise the construction of piped sanitation systems, and profess long term aspirations for full coverage (e.g. LCC, 2014; World Bank, 2017). Yet across Sub-Saharan Africa, official measures suggest that only 11% of urban residents have access to a sewer connection. Even when connections exist, these systems do not necessarily work well: safe management also relies on water for flushing (which can be irregular) and the careful treatment of faecal sludge. ¹ There is, therefore, a growing concern with such infrastructure, particularly in the context of growing uncertainties over climate change and its impacts on water (Lawhon et al., 2023; van Vliet et al., 2010). The technological, financial and ecological challenges associated with networked sanitation are particularly acute in Global South cities, yet a combination of path-dependence and the social meanings associated with flush and discharge systems mean that many are reluctant to shift the focus of sanitation beyond the sewer (Fam et al., 2009; Iossifova, 2015; McFarlane and Silver, 2017; Morales et al., 2014; Nilsson, 2006).

In this context, there are ongoing questions in terms of what types of sanitation should be provided, and how this relates to the ongoing everyday practices already found across cities in and beyond Africa. How do people navigate the various options for sanitation in the city? What kinds of infrastructure enables adaption to uncertain conditions, including climate change and fluctuating access to water? Under what conditions might heterogeneous configurations better ensure safe and reliable infrastructure? Under what conditions might they be preferable to some residents? (see Jaglin, 2014; Lawhon et al., 2018).

In this paper, we draw on data from Lilongwe (Malawi) to begin teasing out one set of answers to these questions. In what follows, we provide a deeper review of the literature on infrastructure, heterogeneity, and risk with an emphasis on southern cities. Then, we describe our methodology and provide an overview of sanitation infrastructure in Lilongwe. In the next section, we describe the official position on infrastructure, one that accepts the presence of latrines in some areas and declares them to be inappropriate in others. We then contrast this position with the perspectives and everyday practices of residents from across the city who live with an intermittent water supply, exacerbated by recent droughts. This not only compromises household water security and health (Adams, 2018; Rusca et al., 2017b; Velzeboer et al., 2018) but also complicates the operation of waterborne sanitation systems. In these conditions, some middle and high-income residents respond to various pressures by strategically combining the use of on and off-grid infrastructure (i.e. indoor flush toilets connected to the sewer and backyard latrines ² ). We consider how this locally grounded adaptation has emerged and the multiple functions it fulfils for residents. We show how, in seeking solutions for water shortages and partially inoperative flush-toilets, residents challenge professional imaginaries of urban sanitation. The resultant configuration is far from perfect, but it enables residents to cope with a range of limits and uncertainties.

The paper concludes with reflections on what can be learned from this infrastructure configuration for the planning of more resilient water and sanitation services. Our intention is not to argue in favour of a particular technology or infrastructural configuration; we have no doubt that the infrastructure we describe is imperfect and that there are ways in which it could be improved. Instead, we argue that scholars, policy-makers and officials need to recognise the limits of networked infrastructure despite its ongoing sociopolitical significance and not reject locally-grounded solutions of residents simply because they do not match hegemonic infrastructural imaginaries and ideals. The provision of urban services requires compromises, and this is likely to be increasingly true given the uncertainties of the future. Infrastructures that are flexible, with redundancies built into the configuration, are more likely to enable residents to navigate change; equally, interventions that work with, rather than reject the solutions developed by residents, are more likely to enable adaptation in an increasingly uncertain future.

Sanitation infrastructure on and off the grid

Southern cities have a long history of infrastructure failure and disruption, attributable to many causes: artefacts can fail, access can be denied, or residents may no longer be able to afford the payments typically required to access infrastructure. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation) have been developed in response to these failures, and many countries in the Global South including Malawi have now developed National Water Policies focussed on ‘water and sanitation for all’ with a focus on increasing access to water supply, increasing access to safely managed sanitation services, and reducing open defecation (cf. Government of Malawi, 2020). Attending to these water and sanitation infrastructures, scholars writing about southern cities have worked to shift the focus away from the failures to build and failures of modern infrastructure and instead urged consideration of the ways urban residents access services (Furlong and Kooy, 2017; Monstadt and Schramm, 2017). This scholarship has documented the ‘plethora of ownerships, users, technological artefacts, usages and temporalities’ (Lawhon et al., 2018: 728) that constitute urban infrastructure. It has shown that, beyond simply changing their everyday behaviours, residents and those responsible for local infrastructure often consciously and intentionally create infrastructure in ways that enable more diverse responses to disruption and failure. As a result, residents often have many different ways to access and achieve sanitation services, even if all have their limitations. In contrast to viewing redundancies as ‘inefficiencies’, the simultaneous use of multiple infrastructures (known as ‘stacking’) can be seen as a way to adapt to infrastructural uncertainty (Jewitt, 2011).

Research on water supply, for example, has shown that everyday strategies, including the use of redundant solutions, are also present in networked and formal spaces of the city. In these areas, those who can afford it complement the piped water service with storage tanks, rain water collection, suction pumps, water tankers, or bottled water (Alba et al., 2019; Button, 2017; Furlong, 2014; Kasper and Schramm, 2023; Nganyanyuka et al., 2014; Smiley, 2013). Some of these overlapping strategies have implications in terms of reproducing urban inequalities. For example, the use of suction pumps or storage tanks may reduce the flow of water to those users at end of pipe locations (very often in periurban or informal areas) (Anand, 2012; Björkman, 2018; Talozi, 2018; Truelove, 2019). However, coexistence of piped water with other sources also allows users to sustain access during recurrent water shortages or chronic infrastructural failure and enables them to maintain independence from providers and reduce costs (Furlong, 2014).

Studies of everyday practices of sanitation, in contrast, have tended to focus on a single toilet, technology or set of toilet stances (see Jewitt et al., 2018 for a longer review and alternative approach). The vast majority of urban residents, however, combine a wide range of non-networked technologies (e.g. from different types of latrines, to portable toilets, to buckets and plastic bags) and service provisioning arrangements (e.g. from self-help, to community based, to entrepreneur provided) (Ahlers et al., 2014; McFarlane et al., 2014). How these different artefacts work together – how residents navigate between them – remains less clear. In this context, Lawhon et al. (2018) urge us to think through heterogeneous infrastructure configurations, to consider how this multiplicity enables access even when some infrastructure fails.

This way of thinking about infrastructure and strategies for mitigating disruption takes on particular importance when considering the uncertainties associated with a changing climate. ³ Modern infrastructure such as sewers faces enormous challenges as the climate continues to change; conventional water-based urban sanitation systems (flush toilets connected to a sewer network or to a septic tank) have been classified as the sanitation technologies with lowest climate-resilience (Howard et al., 2010; Luh et al., 2017). As Ziervogel et al. (2017: 123) note, officially constituted ‘resilience’ interventions are dominated by expert-driven approaches developed ‘based on the experience and practices of cities in the Global North’ and often not attuned to the realities of other contexts. Unsurprisingly, they have had limited success, and many scholars and practitioners are working to think differently about other ways to address resilience and adaptation that are more attuned to the everyday experiences of infrastructure in the Global South (Ziervogel et al., 2017).

Developing alternative approaches includes recognising already-ongoing practices to adapt to change, for even where official interventions are absent or unsuccessful, situated adaptive capacities emerge (Grasham et al., 2019; Nakyagaba et al., 2021; Rodina et al., 2017; Ziervogel et al., 2017). Sometimes, these are practices adopted in times of drought: Kadibadiba et al. (2018) and Shepherd (2019) show that residents changed their behaviour, avoiding urination, reducing flushing (with an associated reduction in toilet cleanliness standards), using rainwater and grey water from bathing and laundry or purchasing recycled water to flush the toilet.

In addition to recognising that different practices already exist, scholars have pushed back against the teleology of developmentalist narratives of sanitation technology. Mainstream development approaches have tended to draw from the ‘sanitation ladder’: ⁴ as the name implies, in its original form this ladder was hierarchical and stagial, tracing a singular path to be walked up to achieve progress in sanitation (with a flushing toilet connected to a sewer as the pinnacle of development). Rather than presenting a singular hierarchy of sanitation technologies, there is a push to recognise that all toilets have their limits: while flushing toilets require water and are particularly vulnerable in times of water scarcity, other toilets work in different ways. They may fill and require emptying, may be particularly vulnerable to flooding during heavy rains, or attract mosquitos, a risk that is higher at certain times of the year. Further, different types of toilets have different risks for different groups. As a result, many residents have access to more than one type of toilet, and may make choices – albeit constrained ones – over how to address their sanitation needs. One example is the presence of a flushing toilet indoors, and a latrine in the backyard, part of an urban sanitation configuration in which two different artefacts exist on one plot (Marks et al., 2020; Tchuwa, 2014). Such arrangements challenge the idea that the flushing toilet is always better and teleological narratives that suggest latrines will be replaced; we return to such considerations in our empirical work below.

Importantly, our argument here is not that we can find perfect models of infrastructure in the everyday practices of African urban residents. Few, if any, would argue that existing configurations are ‘good’ for people, health or the environment: undoubtedly existing infrastructures carry risks and there is the potential that interventions might improve and enhance infrastructural resilience. Instead, we emphasise that we are writing in a moment of uncertainty. This uncertainty includes not knowing future climate and water patterns, but also entails uncertainty about what kind of infrastructure might be best set to achieve existing and future water and sanitation service needs. In this context, our core contention is that understanding the everyday sanitation practices of urban residents and the multiple ways that they deliver sanitation services amidst these uncertainties, provides a way to ‘push back’ against singular, teleological narratives about infrastructural futures and may open space for more capacious thinking about what the sanitation infrastructures of the future ought to be.

Methodology

Field research was undertaken by author Alda-Vidal for two 3-month periods during 2017 and 2018 across Lilongwe (Areas 18, 23, 47, 49, 50 and 56). While we adopt the language used by the state to differentiate these areas: planned and low-income, our data troubles such spatial dichotomies. Generally speaking, we consider all those with dual toilet configurations – the focal point of this paper – to be middle or high income, regardless of where their home is located. This paper draws upon wider research conducted on the framework of author Alda-Vidal’s PhD project (see Alda-Vidal, 2022) and focuses on semi-structured interviews with residents in planned areas and Low-Income Areas (LIAs) (39 interviews) and government officials (16 interviews). Interviews were conducted with the support of field assistants in English or Chichewa and translated to English. Some interviews were tape recorded and transcribed directly from the English translation, and some interviews were summarised from handwritten notes. The quotes below are from these interviews unless otherwise noted, and to ensure anonymity we only refer to the gender, type of area where the person resides, and the year of the interview. Further, the main urban plans (e.g. urban plans, zoning schemes, municipal standards) and water and sanitation project documents (e.g. project reports, master plans, feasibility studies) over the last 50 years were gathered and reviewed through archival and desk research.

A brief overview of Lilongwe’s water and sanitation services

As Tiwale et al. (2018) describe, over the last 50 years in Lilongwe, tremendous and never-ending efforts have been put into constructing, maintaining and upgrading the municipal water infrastructures to keep up with population growth. Yet supply is often erratic, stopping without warning for a few hours or even a few days (Alda-Vidal et al., 2018; Tiwale et al., 2018). In contrast, public investments in urban sanitation have been limited and mainly focussed in the planned areas. Water and sanitation infrastructures and levels of service provision are highly differentiated between the planned areas and the LIAs (Alda-Vidal et al., 2018; Rusca et al., 2017a; Tiwale et al., 2018). The majority of sanitation facilities found in LIAs (70%) are self-constructed dug pit latrines with or without a slab (World Bank, 2017), although other types of toilets such as ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines, composting toilets (mainly Skyloo and Fossa Alterna) and flush toilets connected to a septic tank are also found, though they are not as common. Inadequately constructed and operated latrines pose an important hazard for public health in the LIAs as they can easily contaminate local water sources (Rusca et al., 2017a). Pit emptying services are scarce and expensive, and some residents opt for adding water regularly to avoid the filling of the latrines leading to an increased risk for groundwater pollution (Alda-Vidal et al., 2023). In the planned areas, most households are connected to the municipal piped water system, operated by municipal water utility – Lilongwe Water Board. These homes also make use of water-based sanitation technologies; the majority have a flush toilet connected to a septic tank (25% of the urban population) with fewer connected to the piped sanitation network (5%) (World Bank, 2017). Yet these statistics – indicating that 30% of urban residents have water-based sanitation technologies – obscure much what is actually going on in these areas. Even in planned areas, there is also off-grid sanitation (World Bank, 2017).

Many contemporary latrines are a legacy of the colonial architectural landscape of the city, when so-called Boys [sic] or Servants’ Quarters were built to host (African) domestic workers. These quarters remain a common architectural feature in middle- and high-income areas (Ginsburg, 2000; Hansen, 1992; Harris and Hay, 2007). Over time, they have acquired new uses, and new ones may even be constructed to host domestic servants or to be used as a guest wing, storage space, or as self-contained rental. Many are also now fully plumbed and integrated to the main house (waste)water system, while others are still constructed with access to basic water and sanitation technologies (outdoors latrine and yard tap). While this configuration has historical roots, below we tease out the ways in which it continues in the present, and has been adopted in new places, showing how this configuration responds to old and new demands.

State expectations and imaginaries of sanitation development

Our review of urban sanitation planning documents and the interviews held with municipal officials points to a contradictory discourse about the use of latrines as a suitable sanitation solution for Lilongwe, and in particular for planned areas. The last Urban Master Plan recommends avoiding sanitary latrines in areas with population density above 10 persons/ha ‘to ensure the prevention of pollution to the surrounding environment’ (MoLGRD, 2010: 8–12). As current urban densities are over 30 persons/ha this means these technologies are not seen as a desirable solution as they present high risk of contamination (MoLGRD, 2010). However, in the 2010 Urban Master Plan and the last Lilongwe City Development Guidelines and Standards (2014), ⁵ latrines are recommended as a temporary solution in LIAs due to the lack of capacity of the Lilongwe City Council (LCC) to extend the sewer there in the mid-term (MoLGRD, 2010) or of the ability of residents to afford any other technology. The draft Guidelines and Standards incorporate a range of different sanitation technologies that are considered suitable for both the planned city and the LIAs, ranking them hierarchically (i.e. waterborne sanitation is considered the best possible solution) and differentiated across urban spaces (i.e. improved latrines only accepted in LIAs).

Municipal sanitation professionals reported that they would like to see the sewer system extended to the whole city, including LIAs:

we look at sewer as the best option, especially in the high-density areas. Unfortunately, there are some cases where, as of now there is no way you can go and connect them to sewer because they have already built there. (Interview LCC official, 2017)

Despite such statements, public investments have mainly focussed on the planned areas of the City. As the LCC official later explained, there is a certain expectation that residents in LIAs will naturally move from basic sanitation technologies to waterborne sanitation as their financial situation improves:

We leave the process to run itself, where, as the town expands, people see also the need to come up with better structures than what they are using. (Interview LCC official, 2017)

This acceptance of latrines in LIAs contrasts with the approach in planned areas. In planned areas, the construction of latrines is restricted by the 1987 Town and Country Planning Guidelines and Standards, still in use today. As the guidelines indicate, ‘in urban areas all permanent developments must have waterborne toilet facilities drained to a septic tank and soakaway within the plot or to a sewer, to the approval of the local authority’ (Government Of Malawi, 1987: 2–15). The lack of compliance with these requirements or the inclusion of infrastructures that do not meet these requirements in the projects, such as latrines, would mean the local authority, in this case, LCC, would not consent to the project. This approach is illustrated in an interview excerpt with a LCC official conducted by Langkau:

So, as we look at the plan, we will look at the workability say in terms of traffic flow, positioning of septic tank, if you want it at the back of your house, is it possible to empty it when it is full? How is the storm water drainage within your plot…? And if you put in this plan a pit latrine you will not be allowed [to carry on with the construction]. (Interview with LCC official as quoted in Langkau (2016: 42)

Yet interviews also show that, despite clear rules, backyard latrines are in widespread use, and various officials are clearly aware of this. As a Malawi Housing Coorporation (MHC) official stated:

MHC does not have pit latrines, some people might have because of the water problems we have, but we do not advocate for that … Even people building their own houses in MHC plots, they need to bring their plans to MHC and LCC … There are standards… MHC has estate officers moving around and checking that there are no pit latrines. (Interview MHC official, 2017)

Despite a seemingly tacit awareness, these backyard latrines in the planned areas are not accounted for or even mentioned in any urban or sanitation planning document; the official approach is that their existence should not be accepted. In sum, officials and state documents continue to be guided by a technocratic perspective that privileges expert knowledge and expectations of urban development. Yet, as we describe below, these expectations map poorly onto the experiences and needs of urban residents.

One plot, two types of toilets and their many users

We now consider the sanitation history of the neighbourhood, explaining the situated logic behind a heterogeneous sanitation configuration in which backyard latrines were constructed behind planned houses, even when the houses were connected to networked infrastructure and had flushing toilets. Finally, we examine the everyday practices and narratives that explain why these configurations continue despite the presence of networked infrastructure.

Ensuring the presence of two types of toilets

Backyard latrines are usually built in empty plots during the construction of new houses by masons for their own use, and later retained by plot-owners for houseworkers or as a secondary toilet. As explained by one of the interviewees:

once you have bought a place, the first thing is to see where the person who will be looking after it will be staying, let’s say, building a small house or we can say a Boys Quarter and a latrine for him to be using it. (Woman, LIA)

A participant who had a latrine constructed in his empty plot for the use of construction workers, explained,

when constructing a house, it is a must to have a latrine for the people who have been hired to be working on the place to use it and after the house is constructed, it is when the owners have to decide whether to leave or close the latrine. (Woman, LIA)

More recently, some residents have started purposely including dual sanitation configurations (backyard latrine and indoors waterborne system) in newly constructed houses as a response to water supply challenges. This was the case for a participant who constructed a new house a few years ago in a middle-income residential area in the outskirts of the city. Like other neighbours, he decided it was a good idea to have a latrine constructed in the backyard along with the septic tank since he started planning the new house. As he put it ‘if you rely only on one type of toilet it will be a problem, so you have to construct both’ (Man, LIA).

Similarly, interviews revealed that flush toilets and septic tanks were often installed before the municipal water network arrived in the area. This means, in some cases, residents have been operating the flush toilets by pouring water manually for years. This was the case of a participant who moved to Area 56 twenty years ago when there were very few people living there. As she recounted, the family decided to construct a permanent house with a latrine as well as indoor bathrooms and a septic tank, even though the municipal water pipes had not reached her neighbourhood yet. Despite installing an indoor waterborne system, she continued using the outdoor latrine.

Low-income areas have a different history of sanitation, but also often end up with a dual sanitation configuration. Some wealthier residents have been able to invest in upgrading their sanitation infrastructures and installed waterborne sanitation systems (flush-toilet and septic tanks). As we will further elaborate in the next sections, while possibly not the only reason, the convenience of having an indoor sanitation facility as opposed to having to use the outdoor latrine and bathroom featured prominently in the explanations provided by residents as to why they decided to invest in a water-based system. However, interviews show that upgrading to a new type of technology does not imply latrines are abandoned.

In interviews residents explained that household sanitation upgrading is often done incrementally. Residents started with a pit latrine and as houses were being renovated or extended, septic tanks and inside bathrooms were constructed and the sanitary plumbing installed progressively over years according to their savings. This was the case for a participant who lives with her family in Area 56. The home was constructed in 2004 and at that time the family used the outdoors latrine and bathroom. Ten years later when they renovated the house, two indoor bathrooms and a septic tank were constructed. As she explained, it was planned that both bathrooms were meant to be used by the children, one in the master room and a second bathroom, and would be connected to the septic tank. However, the money ran out, and the second bathroom was never completed, remaining (to date) non-operational.

Dealing with shortages of water and money through dual sanitation configurations

Interviews revealed that due to increasing water shortages, many residents in planned areas store water for drinking and other domestic purposes, including flushing the toilet. Many households collect water in containers of different types and sizes during service hours, while some wealthier residents are opting for constructing storage tanks. However, household storage capacity is not always enough.

One option residents undertake is to look for alternative sources. For example, Agnes is a domestic worker who is employed in a house in Area 18, where they have a flush toilet connected to the sewer system. When the tap water stops, she told us, she walks down the road to an area where there are vegetable gardens. There, she is typically able to collect water from a well for free. She then carries a 20 l bucket back, ensuring everybody can use the toilet normally. Others have to pay for their supplemental water, as was the case for another research participant. The family has a flush toilet connected to a septic tank and backyard latrine. When there is no water supply, they get it from a nearby borehole. However, as she explained, at the borehole there are often long queues, and they must pay for the water.

When money was tight, residents would pursue a different solution: she noted that they only use borehole water in the toilet for emergencies or at night. The remainder of the time, they use the backyard latrine. These backyard latrines have become an essential part of many homes, even for wealthier residents. A research participant explained that he has a storage tank at home, but told us he is never certain when the water supply will be restored. For that reason, he and his family ‘try to be careful using the stored water and prefer to save it for other purposes rather than using it to flush the toilet’ (Man, LIA). Coping with frequent and long water shortages was the reason why, even with a storage tank, this family decided to construct a backup latrine in the yard.

For interviewees, this dual system helps not only with the uncertainty produced by erratic water supply but also to reduce water bills. As one participant explained, ‘when you use the flush toilet, you use the water that is in the cistern. That means five litres each time’ (Woman, LIA). She feels this is a cost she can save sometimes by using the outdoor latrine. Depending on their economic situation and for reasons we tease out below, some families shift from one technology to the other or to restrict the use of the flush toilet to certain members of the family (children are sent to the latrine) or times of the day (the flush toilet is only used at night).

Convenience, accessibility, and safety

While outdoor latrines provide an important solution in the context of water supply uncertainties, participants explained that given their design and location, indoor flush toilets are more convenient for some members of the household or at some times of the day. This was illustrated by a woman who lives in Area 18 in a house with a backup latrine in the yard. She explained that, as an older person, it is more comfortable for her to use the flush toilet (where she can sit down) than the pit latrine (where she must squat). A similar example was given by a woman who lives in a planned area. She has a three-year-old who is still being toilet trained, and the child only uses the indoor toilet under supervision, regardless of whether there is water or not. As these examples show, outdoors latrines may be less accessible for children, people with mobility limitations or those who are sick.

Interviews show that indoor waterborne facilities are also more convenient at night when visiting the latrine may be unsafe. Residents explained they fear being assaulted on the way to the outdoor latrine or that criminals can take advantage of that moment to enter their house (Woman, LIA; cf O’Reilly, 2016; Schmitt et al., 2018). For example, one participant explained she was attacked by someone throwing stones at her when she was on her way to the outdoor latrine in the middle of the night. She was so scared that when they moved to a new house, she decided they should construct an indoor bathroom.

Urban social relations and cultural meanings

Interviews show that outdoors latrines fulfil important functions in relation to urban social relations and cultural meanings of sanitation. The location and design of the flush toilets restricts who is allowed to use this facility. As a participant explained,

The (indoor) toilet is for the family… we only allow people we know, people we are related to or friends only… if we don’t know them, we don’t allow them (to use it) because you never know if they are here to use the toilet or maybe they want to steal from us. (Man, LIA)

Often this means domestic workers such as maids, watchmen, or gardeners use the latrine in the backyard. This was justified based in the different spaces of the house these workers have access to. As a participant explained: ‘For the security guard, we all know that his duties are done outside at night, so we told him to use the (outdoor) latrine since he is already outside’ (Woman, LIA). Other participants referred to the differentiated sanitation practices of domestic workers:

[discussing blockages in the septic tanks] Yeah, we have those problems with the workers… even if you teach them how to use the toilets you still have problems… like in our place we have a flush toilet outside for the workers but we have been having problems with the usage, how they use it, sometimes after using it they do not clean it and that is why most of us have backup pit latrines. (Man, planned area, 2017)

The combined system of flush toilets and latrines reflects a class dimension in the reproduction of wider urban inequalities with workers (who usually come from and live in periurban areas) having access to infrastructures that are located lower in the service hierarchy.

While this clearly is a form of inequality, this configuration is also a vital component of houseworkers’ geographies of access to sanitation; many found the toilets at work preferable to those near their homes. To avoid sanitation challenges in the area where they live, workers often adapt their body rhythms, waiting to use the toilets in the houses where they work (Alda-Vidal et al., 2023). An illustration of these was provided by Resident 25. He lives in Area 56 with his wife and children and works as a night watchman in a house in Area 3. In an interview, he explained that the latrine they use had collapsed during the last rainy season and the family is currently using the toilet of a relative. Using someone else’s toilet requires maintaining good relations with the owners of the toilet one has been allowed to use, not always an easy task. When possible, he waits until the evening to use the toilet at work instead.

With very few public toilets in the city, interviewees revealed how backyard latrines may also be an important sanitation facility for street vendors. This was described by one of the participants:

The latrine is used by my family, the security guard, and some other people that we know, like street vendors, they travel a lot so when they ask for a toilet, we allow them, we cannot object them … [The latrine] is outside our house, we know them, we are around there, nothing can happen… we do not allow strangers to use the toilet inside for security reasons. (Woman, LIA, 2018)

Furthermore, latrines play an important role in enabling situated forms of social life; with interviewees explaining how outdoors latrines become important when they hold large gatherings. As a participant explained, the latrine ‘helps us when we have functions like wedding or parties instead of just allowing people to use flush toilet inside the house, we advise them to use the latrine’ (Woman, LIA, 2018).

The availability of toilet facilities while hosting social or community events was also a topic of discussion among participants who were urban chiefs. Urban chiefs have an important role in local governance and often hold large community events such as funerals or receiving community members. For example, a female urban chief explained that one of the reasons why she decided to construct a latrine outdoors was because she received a lot of visitors and ‘did not want them queuing inside the house to use the toilet’ (Woman, LIA, 2018). A participant who lives in Area 18 and was also an urban chief explained that ‘visitors prefer to use the toilet outside for privacy’. According to her, the house where her family lives is small and ‘if we are in a meeting in the living room, visitors might feel shy to ask for permission to go to the toilet or to go in front of everybody. It is just easier to sneak out and use the latrine in the back of the house’ (Woman, planned area, 2018).

Backyard latrines are also useful in terms of accommodating the differentiated and (culturally specific) needs of women related to handling menstrual waste (Alda-Vidal and Browne, 2022). As a participant explained:

The latrine in the yard is useful for us … we are five females at the house, this toilet helps us to dispose used pads … we cannot throw them in the flush toilet, they would block it and we cannot keep them in the house, they would smell so the easiest way is disposing them in the latrine. (Woman, LIA, 2018)

In sum, these domestic sanitation infrastructures show that often infrastructures do not adjust in accordance to the expectations embedded in formal plans. Through a focus on the lived experiences of residents, we show that, in a context of intermittent water supply, for some residents the combined sanitation system becomes part of the range of household artefacts and practices to deal with long term water uncertainty. Despite being invisibilised in state accounts (i.e. planning documents and interviews with city officials) this dual configuration of latrines co-existing alongside networked infrastructure is not only common (rooted in the colonial past of the city), but also fulfils multiple functions for residents.

Conclusion

In this article we have examined a locally grounded sanitation configuration consisting of the combined use of flush-toilets and backyard latrines on a single plot. The data explores two different sanitation technologies relationally, considering not only the relations between sanitation artefacts (flush toilets and backyard latrines), but also how these connect and disconnect residents and urban spaces. This has enabled us to show how this dual configuration works for residents, from ensuring the availability of sanitation amidst irregular water access to accommodating different needs and social relations. The way these infrastructures are constructed challenges widespread professional assumptions emphasising linear development in sanitation from low to high standard artefacts (from latrines to flush-toilets).

From a theoretical perspective, the paper contributes to literature on heterogeneous infrastructure configurations, documenting the diversity of sanitation infrastructures in Global South cities and thinking through this diversity. First, we contribute with a deep description and analysis of the different trajectories of infrastructure development, showing how heterogenous infrastructural configurations emerge through local histories and situated challenges and social relations. Second, we extend examinations of heterogeneous infrastructure configurations by highlighting the existence of off-grid sanitation within networked and planned spaces of the city. Third, we show that even presumably obdurate and stable waterborne sanitation systems are incomplete and adaptable to the needs of residents.

Deepening our understanding of how such infrastructural configurations work has practical implications. It is important to look critically – without romanticising – at the multiplicities, possibilities, and limitations of already existing residents’ everyday adaptations that happen on and off the grid. In Lilongwe, planners and planning documents recognise the diversity of sanitation infrastructures. However, they fail to formally recognise heterogeneity as a characteristic of southern infrastructures that transcends the boundaries between urban spaces (planned/unplanned) and that this heterogeneity has benefits even to residents of planned areas. Condemning an illegal but longstanding infrastructure, such as backyard latrines, is not contributing to solving the potential environmental and public health challenges of these structures, but instead invisibilises and even disables the potential contributions to improving urban sanitation provision.

The need for infrastructure to respond to uncertainties and disruptions becomes even more important in the context of an ongoing range of political, economic and ecological crises. The fieldwork that informs this paper took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the need for outdoor toilets was even more pressing during and after the pandemic. Economic pressures have only increased for most people in Lilongwe, and water patterns continue to be unpredictable, making the disruptions and uncertainties for sanitation associated with water supply even more prevalent. A more progressive sanitation planning system would entail accepting that sanitation infrastructures rarely follow urban plans and regulations, that waterborne sanitation systems may not always work or be used as planned, that dual systems co-exist, and people rely in practice on both on grid and off grid sanitation infrastructures. A more progressive system may also entail allowing, encouraging and even supporting the construction and maintenance of sanitary latrines in a safe manner, even in the planned spaces of the city.