Wet Dirt: A phenomenological-historical foundation for green sanitation as environmental justice

Urban green sanitation projects occur in complicated and ambiguous contexts, local and concrete issues mingling with broader matters of law and justice, economics, and science. This essay, grounded in historical studies of communal water and sanitation initiatives, explores the relations among multiple levels of authority and engagement. It begins with physical, chemical, and biological aspects of water and wastes as individuals experience them – the phenomenology of “wet dirt” -- before moving to cultures of sanitation and hydro-social relations, contrasting these with abstract levels involved in assessing green sanitation, such as economics and law. The essay concludes with a call to explore modes of engagement in green sanitation that avoid conflicts between levels of abstraction, using gift-giving and art-making as examples.