Sewers and sewage treatment in Mumbai

Temporality, difference, competing universals and infrastructural entanglements

Bibliographic Data

ID4464645
AuthorsPurva Dewoolkar (0000-0002-2351-4974, University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume8
Issue3
Pages839-860
Publication date2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486251315289
OpenAlexW4408700004
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited42

The paper examines Mumbai's unfinished sewage infrastructure and aims to deepen the understanding of how infrastructural 'delays' are lived. Drawing on post-developmental frameworks, I provide empirical insights into the lived realities of infrastructural delays. Challenging linear infrastructure development, I apply the concept of unfinishedness to reveal improvised arrangements that emerge through gaps arising from prolonged delays. By reading policy documents in conjunction with interviews with key stakeholders, including professionals working on/with sewage in Mumbai, I demonstrate how sewage infrastructure remains perpetually unfinished - always in the process but never reaching the presumed end goal defined within the policies. I supplement this with a case study of the Bhimnagar basti to understand how long periods of waiting are lived. These show the neighbourhood improvisations that emerge around unfinished systems over time. Thinking through Bhimnagar, I offer a close reading of how the city is influenced by and shapes itself around unfinished infrastructure, revealing the arrangements that emerge through everyday processes of inhabitation

Epistemology · Problem of universals · Sanitary sewer · Sociology · Temporality · Environmental Science · Philosophy · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Environmental Engineering