Urban waterscapes and the pandemic – changing water practices, technologies and infrastructures in Nairobi

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The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of water access as an essential service protecting human health. Frequent handwashing and general hygiene are prerequisites for health and particularly for containing the spread of contagious diseases. However, the fight against infectious diseases and the prevention of human-to-human transmission of the novel virus may be hampered by uneven geographies of water access. More particularly, people living in deprived areas of rapidly growing cities risk being more vulnerable to the effects of the global pandemic. The current pandemic has presented a dilemma for water providers as well as residents in water-deprived urban areas as they need to find ways to meet new hygiene standards and requirements despite lacking access to water infrastructure. Thus, urban actors in water-deprived settlements across the globe adapt their water-related practices in manifold heterogeneous ways to new requirements of health and hygiene. While some studies of urban Africa have already discussed different responses to increased water demand during the pandemic, the intricate ways in which urban ‘waterscapes’ have changed during the pandemic are yet to be investigated. The term ‘waterscape’ directs attention to the “contested geographies of water” where urban water flows are mediated by networked infrastructure systems as well as everyday practices and technologies and thereby reflect uneven power relations.Focusing on Nairobi, Kenya’s capital with historically uneven and highly contested geographies of water, we mobilize the concept of waterscapes in order to understand 1) how Nairobi’s waterscapes – the infrastructure system as well as everyday practices and technologies – have changed during the pandemic; 2) how these waterscape changes relate to new requirements of health and hygiene, and 3) in how far they reflect creativity in adapting to new requirements and/or re-produce urban fragmentation. After a city-wide overview over changes of the sociotechnical water infrastructure system of Nairobi during the pandemic, we will focus our field study on water-related practices in two specific areas in Nairobi: Eastleigh and Kibera. Eastleigh is a middle-lower income area with a long history as a hub for the (Kenyan-)Somali community and businesses. Piped water supply in Eastleigh cannot keep up with rapid densification through multi-story housing. Kibera is one of the oldest slums of Nairobi. Despite regular attempts to upgrade Kibera, it is dominated by low-rise, extremely dense housing mostly without individual access to water and sanitation. We will apply a mixed-method approach with an emphasis on qualitative research to reveal context-dependent characteristics and a deep understanding of the mechanisms, relationships and motives underlying current changes of everyday water practices in water-deprived areas of Nairobi.