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Download fileUsing immersive research to understand rural sanitation: lessons from the Swachh Bharat Mission in India
conference contribution
posted on 2018-10-25, 14:42 authored by Mary Abraham, S. Bharadwaj, Robert Chambers, Dheeraj, Andres Hueso, M.J. Joseph, R. Mukerjee, Jamie Myers, P. Narayanan, V.R. Raman, S. [Wedc] Sarkar, P. Shah, T. ThomasThis paper focuses on an Immersive Research Approach designed by Praxis, IDS and WaterAid whereby researchers lived in villages in recently declared open defecation free districts, to gain an in-depth understanding of ground realities and community perspectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin. The study shed light on key aspects and dynamics influencing local ownership, behaviour change and construction quality, and also revealed multifaceted exclusion processes. The immersive approach helped build trust with villagers and allowed a unique insight into the SBM in its ‘real life’ context, necessary to explore hidden dynamics and diverse perspectives, and understand the complexities involved. Despite some practical challenges, undertaking immersive studies and experiences would be beneficial for improving the Swachh Bharat Mission and other sanitation programmes. The approach could be adopted pragmatically, but always respecting some basic principles and ethical behavior.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Research Unit
- Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)
Published in
Transformation towards sustainable and resilient WASH services: Proceedings of the 41st WEDC International ConferencePages
? - ? (6)Citation
ABRAHAM, M. ... et al., 2018. Using immersive research to understand rural sanitation: lessons from the Swachh Bharat Mission in India. IN: Shaw, R.J. (ed). Transformation towards sustainable and resilient WASH services: Proceedings of the 41st WEDC International Conference, Nakuru, Kenya, 9-13 July 2018, Paper 2866, 6 pp.Publisher
© WEDC, Loughborough UniversityVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2018Notes
This is a conference paper.Language
- en