Kampala’s Heterogeneous Sanitation Infrastructures: Exemplars of Survival and Disruption

Abstract This paper challenges the contemporary framings of informal sanitation infrastructures in global South cities as disordered, precarious, and incompatible with the modern urban condition. Drawing on a heterogeneous infrastructure configuration (HIC) analytical lens and a qualitative methodology incorporating in-depth interviews, critical observation, and systematic literature review, it examines Kampala’s informal sanitation infrastructures – reconceptualised as heterogeneous sanitation infrastructures (HSIs) – across the service chain from faecal waste containment through emptying and transport to treatment and disposal. In-depth examination of private, shared, and communal sanitation modalities reveals a complex socio-technical configuration – sustained through diverse multi-actor working arrangements involving households, sanitation entrepreneurs, community organisations, and public institutions. Analysing these modalities demonstrates that HSIs are structurally embedded, functionally indispensable, and socially differentiated features of Kampala’s fabric. Subsequently, distinct sanitation infrastructure geographies constituting a continuum from infrastructures of survival to infrastructures of disruption have emerged. They mediate faecal waste flows while disproportionately exposing the urban poor to sanitation deficiency and environmental risk. Theoretically, the paper argues that Kampala’s HSIs are vital for rethinking urban infrastructure theory beyond the archetypes of networked modernity that dominate planning and policy discourse – revealing, instead, a polycentric, socially networked, and spatially differentiated infrastructure reality that is increasingly evident in rapidly growing African cities. Practically, the paper demonstrates that recognition, targeted investment, and governance reform can unlock the transformative potential of HSIs, offering a credible pathway toward inclusive and equitable urban sanitation across Africa.