Feminist sanitary engineering in rural South Africa : a theoretical framework

Abstract: This licentiate thesis is a compilation of three papers with an introductory chapter. The papers cover the theory used in the doctoral research project 'Gender and technology. A Comparative study of Water Supply and Sanitation Technologies in India and South Africa'. The introductory chapter describes the motives for the study; a need to connect feminist theory and practical development work within the water and sanitation sector in the Third World. In the introduction, different views on knowledge, and science in relation to other knowledges, are discussed. The first and second paper discuss feminist theory and ecofeminism developed in the Third World or with relevance to Third World contexts. The need to address multiple hierarchies, including gender, class, race and human/nature is evident from this discussion. The third paper describes how participatory methods and the principles behind PRA (participatory rural appraisal) can be used together with feminist theory in research.