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The (in)visibility of sewage management and problematization as strategy for public awareness
Department of Sociology, Uppsala university.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0845-1116
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Childhood, Education and Society (BUS).ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6389-0686
2023 (English)In: Sociological Review, ISSN 0038-0261, E-ISSN 1467-954X, Vol. 71, no 3, p. 696-715Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Sewage management is crucial to the functioning of cities, yet, in the global North, seldom acknowledged in public. Wastewater infrastructures are mainly hidden underground and human excrement is considered a private matter. However, to make sanitation stay invisible, its dysfunctionality (e.g., leaking pipes, aging wastewater plants) is sometimes in acute need of being highlighted. Moreover, the work essential to keep the infrastructures maintained needs to be recognized and compensated for. Based on interviews with actors in the sewage management sector in Sweden, news articles, and public information campaigns, the present article explores how political action and public engagement are mobilized through moves between visibility and invisibility. The analysis focuses on four different modes of problematization: inproblematization, problematization, deproblematization, and unproblematization. Inscribed in the research fields of urban infrastructures and public engagement, the article sheds light on how the public secret of managing feces is upheld, through balancing acts such as creating discursive space, negotiating infrastructural disruptions, making problems treatable, and individualizing solutions. These different modes of problematization are crucial to achieving the right public attention and political measures. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023. Vol. 71, no 3, p. 696-715
Keywords [en]
invisibility, problematization, public secret, sewage, urban infrastructure
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Research subject
Sustainable studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-56182DOI: 10.1177/00380261221136417ISI: 000889184800001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85142651603OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-56182DiVA, id: diva2:1712820
Part of project
Waste Work in the Sustainability Economy: Transforming Values of Biological Waste, Swedish Research Council
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2017-02142Available from: 2022-11-22 Created: 2022-11-22 Last updated: 2023-07-04Bibliographically approved

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Ideland, Malin

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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  • Other style
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  • de-DE
  • en-GB
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  • nn-NB
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  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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  • text
  • asciidoc
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