What is it about?
This essay presents how different academic disciplines talk about the challenges of ensuring access to sanitation for people living in informal settlements. From engineers concerned about technologies, to economists focussing on the business case, to public health experts worried about health risks to social scientists considering the exper
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Why is it important?
The sanitation sector is rightly concerned about how to ensure universal access to sanitation, including in informal settlements. However, this challenge is represented differently depending on who you talk to. This essay exposes these differences and encourages researchers and practitioners to break down barriers between disciplinary narratives to improve the impact of their work.
Perspectives
Writing this essay provided me with the opportunity of analysing research and practice written from different disciplinary perspectives, helping me to understand the different ways people perceive the challenge of eliminating deeply embedded urban inequalities. Only when we understand why people think and act as they do is it possible to find the best solutions to entrenched social problems.
Virginia Roaf
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Disciplining sanitation: Interrogating disciplinary narratives of inequalities in access to sanitation, PLOS Water, February 2026, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000506.
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