From dams to tanks to jerry cans
Storage as a multi-scalar analytic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4464508 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Kasper (0000-0003-1566-3045, TU Dortmund University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1866-1889 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/25148486251372784 |
| OpenAlex | W4414498815 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 51 |
This paper examines the socio-technical and socio-ecological dimensions of water storage across scales in Nairobi, Kenya. The city's piped water supply has historically struggled to keep up with growing demand, resulting in a heterogeneous waterscape that features a multitude of storage arrangements, from massive dams to small jerry cans. Using qualitative methods, including household and expert interviews in different neighborhoods, the study unravels multiple scales and types of water storage, tracing water's journey from natural reservoirs in the Aberdares to large dams, intermediary storage tanks, and finally household containers. It identifies storage as a critical yet under-researched component of urban infrastructure, highlighting its role both as an enabler of diverse supply and access, and as a (re)producer of the inherent inequalities of place-specific infrastructure configurations. However, by proposing and applying storage as a multi-scalar analytic , I advocate a non-problematizing, non-normative understanding across scales that recognizes the stabilizing , disrupting , and creating capacities of any storage arrangement. Ultimately, I argue that integrating a pragmatic, multi-scalar recognition of storage into the planning, design, and governance of urban infrastructure offers opportunities to enable more equitable and sustainable waterscapes
Mitungi as … thinking about urban space and infrastructure with the jerry can
Hacking the pipes
Pipe dreams? Practices of everyday governance of heterogeneous configurations of water supply in Baruipur, a small town in India
Wells and Boreholes
Qualitative methods 1
The story of a pump
The problems of project implementation
Spatio-temporal patterns of domestic water distribution, consumption and sufficiency
Private boreholes for Nairobi's urban poor
The impact of compulsory land acquisition on displaced households
STS beyond the “modern infrastructure ideal”
Reification and the Dictatorship of the Water Meter
Money is Not the Problem”
Storage city
Tool-power
The city as a hybrid
Urban Shadows
Producing water scarcity in São Paulo, Brazil
Geographies of storage
Big infrastructure and/as systemic flexibility
Heterogeneous water provision in Dar es Salaam
The annihilation of time by space
Charging the non-networked
Understanding everyday water experiences through flows
Reconceptualising the drinking waterscape through a grounded perspective
The emotional life of rupture at Cambodia's Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam
Holding water for the city
The body as infrastructure
River and drain
Water with larvae
The multifaceted outcomes of community-engaged water quality management in a Palestinian refugee camp
Conflicts, cooperation and experimentation
From the Sanitary City to the Circular City? Technopolitics of Wastewater Restructuring in Los Angeles, California
Ponds, Power and Institutions
Ways of storing and using water
Political Economy, Social Movements and State Power
Dikes and Dams, Thick with Politics
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |