Factors influencing acceptance of sanitation technologies in South Africa

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Factors influencing acceptance of

sanitation technologies in South

Africa.

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COLOFON

Thesis submitted on the 24th of June 2015. MSc of International Development Studies

Graduate School of social science University of Amsterdam

Factors influencing acceptance of technologies in South Africa.

Supervised by:

Christine Richter (UvA) Catherine Sutherland (UKZN)

Second reader:

Michaela Hordijk (UvA)

Cover picture: Santi van den Toorn

Santi van den Toorn 6385508

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ABSTRACT

Worldwide there are 2.6 billion people without access to adequate water and sanitation facilities. Technology offers great opportunities to solve these deficiencies, but implementation issues often arise. Technologies come with cultural norms and values inscribed, need to be designed with end users in mind and possess qualities such as flexibility and fluidity. All these have consequences for acceptance and uptake of the technologies. On top of that they are perceived different by various social groups involved in the design, implementation and usage of the technology. In Durban, South Africa, the urine diversion toilet (UDT) is a great example of a dry-‐sanitation technology that looked promising at the outset of implementation, but shows low rates of acceptance twelve years after implementation. Previous research has looked into quantitative uptake levels but qualitative reasons for rejecting the toilet have not been given much attention. This research looks into factors influencing the acceptance of the UDT’s and the different perceptions thereof through the application of the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) framework in combination with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use (UTAUT). In order to do so 30 qualitative surveys were conducted and professionals involved in the implementation were interviewed. A poignant discrepancy between perceptions of the implementers and the users came to light, leading to many misconceptions and misinterpretations of the needs and wants of the people as well as of the technology itself and what its (perceived) benefits are. Lack of community driven demand and recognition of the long-‐term environmental and health benefits came out as two of the main reasons to reject the toilet. The political and spatial sanitation landscape posed complications to high acceptance rates due to social stratification and a dual governance system. On the technology side the UDT is too rigid to enable adaptation by the end user and is not flexible enough to serve different needs and cultural environments. A more participatory approach to the design is needed to enable better representation of relevant social groups along the design-‐uptake nexus

Keywords: acceptance of technologies, water and sanitation technologies, urine diversion toilet, South Africa, Durban, eThekwini, technology.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not have been here without the steady support of my local supervisor Catherine Sutherland who taught me so much about South-‐Africa and who, with all her connections, was absolutely indispensable. Of great importance too was my supervisor Christine Richter who provided me with brilliant feedback and never failed to make sure everything made sense. It made my work so much sharper and concise, for which I am grateful. My translators Madudu, Thabani and gatekeeper Sipho were of unmentionable importance during my days in Mzinyathi and so was my colleague from Sweden Denise Silveti. A thanks must also go to my ‘local knowledges’ Chantell Bothma and Michaela Mulvey who had to deal with the many questions I had regarding South African culture and answered all of them with great style. Lastly, as an on-‐going support for the entire duration of this master I have to acknowledge Christina, who made sure everything was put into the right perspective and made me laugh during all of the classes we had.

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LIST OF FEATURES

List of photos

Photo 1 -‐ Impression of Mzinyathi. Photo: Bart Brouwer. ... 20

Photo 2 -‐ Impression of Mzinyathi. Photo: author. ... 20

Photo 3 -‐ Conducting interviews. Photo: Bart Brouwer. ... 25

Photo 4 -‐ Broken vaults. Photo: author. ... 41

Photo 5 -‐ broken doors and pots. Photos: author. ... 56

List of images Image 1 -‐ Conceptual scheme. ... 15

Image 2 -‐ Map of South Africa. Image: Google Maps. ... 16

Image 3 -‐ Map of Durban's city center and Mzinyathi ... 19

Image 4 -‐ Explanation of working of UDT's. Image: EWS. ... 22

Image 5 -‐ Gender distribution of respondents ... 27

Image 6 -‐ Age distribution of respondents. ... 28

List of textboxes Textbox 1 ... 34

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ABBREVIATIONS

ANC African National Congress EcoSan Ecological Sanitation EM eThekwini Municpality

EWS eThekwini Water and Sanitation FBW Free Basic Water

KZN Kwazulu-‐Natal NP National Party PL Pit latrine

PRG Pollution Research Group

SCOT Social Construction of Technology TA Traditional authority

TAM Technology Acceptance Model TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission UDDT Urine Diversion Dehydration Toilet UDL Urban Development Line

UDT Urine Diversion Toilet

UTAUT Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology VIP Ventilated Improved Pit

WC Water Closet

WWTP Waste water treatment plant

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1 I N T R O D U C T I O N

Worldwide there are still 2,6 billion people that lack adequate access to basic water and sanitation facilities (UN Water, 2013; Unicef, 2011). They practice open field defecation whilst human feces contain bacteria causing one of the worlds ten most contagious diseases; diarrhea. This currently leads to a child dying every 15 seconds. Apart from diarrhea it also causes other epidemics like cholera and typhoid (George, 2008). Technologies can provide a solution to a wide variety of problems; social, cultural and of course technical. It is for this reason that advanced and simple technologies are being developed to cater to the problems faced by ‘less developed countries’, also for water and sanitation related issues. Whilst on paper these technologies almost always look promising and seem to hold the ultimate solution, in practice things might work out completely differently. Technologies are likely to be designed by engineers, technicians and other technocratic thinking people, often with a lack of cultural sensitivity, a ‘fingerspitzengefühl’ for local circumstances. This leads to miscommunications, mis-‐implementation and in the worst case; failure of the technology to deliver what it promised.

So a well-‐designed technology does not necessarily hold the solution to a certain problem, it also needs to be accepted by the end users. This relates to its appropriateness for local circumstances and its ability to adapt to different contexts. A lot of research has been done into factors contributing to the acceptance of technologies but the body of literature on differing perceptions of technologies is limited. Additionally in most of the existing literature, technology is seen as a rigid entity and certain properties, such as its fluidity, that are important for its acceptance are not ascribed to it. Moreover there is still a need to explore the social factors that shape the design and implementation of technologies and can potentially pose severe limitations to its success (Klein & Kleinman, 2002).

South Africa is an noteworthy case when it comes to water and sanitation as it is one of the few countries that incorporates the human right to water in its

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constitution (Bond, 2008b). Durban proves to be an especially interesting case study for the aforementioned issues. It has won several international prices for its progressive water and sanitation policies, and has been an example for other big metropolitans both within South Africa and worldwide (SIWI, 2014). One of their renowned projects consists of the provision of urine diversion toilets (UDT) to a great part of its underserviced areas. The project was piloted in Mzinyathi, a peri-‐ urban area in Durban, in 2003 and has recently been completed. In all of the studies I found mostly post-‐implementation quantitative analyses have been done whilst underlying structures and reasons for its high rejection rates have been ignored.

This research will look into different factors influencing acceptance of technologies trough a case study of the UDT project in Durban. It will put local context and the end user as the central units under scrutiny. It is of great importance to the end user that, besides the careful assessment of their needs also cultural properties and local context are taken into account as well as the way people experience this. This relates to perceptions and how they differ between different groups involved in the design, implementation and operational process. In addition to the emphasis on the user, certain properties of the technology that influence its acceptance are looked at. In this way a more holistic approach to design and implementation of technologies is practiced which will hopefully lead to higher acceptance rates which results in a win-‐win situation; less water deprivation related suffering and less technology that goes to waste.

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2 T H E O R E T I C A L F R A M E W O R K

This thesis is about the acceptance of technologies, and how perceptions of the people involved play a role in this process. Globally speaking there are three factors of importance; the users and implementers of the technology, and the technology itself. In this research the focus will be on perceptions regarding technologies and how these differ between the different relevant social groups, complemented with an emphasis on properties of the technology itself. This encompasses an end user, people-‐centered approach instead of a technological approach but will be combined with a critical assessment of the properties of the technology itself and how these influence the acceptance rates. The technology and the users (society) are part of a process where they constantly influence, reinforce and change each other. By assigning the same importance to the individual perceptions as to the technology’s properties it is believed that a more holistic approach to designing and implementing technologies can be achieved, leading to better outcomes and more importantly, higher acceptance rates.

Because an important theoretical point of departure is that technologies are perceived of differently by different social groups involved in use and implementation, I will first discuss the theoretical meaning and role of the users and implementers and afterwards theoretical understandings of technology and its properties.

2.1 Users

Important in the acceptance of technologies is the actor that will be accepting or rejecting the technology. Needless to say that users are an extremely heterogeneous group possessing a complex set of personal traits. Users all have a set of believes, come from a certain socio-‐economic background and have different abilities to understand and grasp their surrounding world. The way they construct

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their reality differs between all of them, but also between them and the designers of the technology. Two very important attributes are the ability and motivation to accept a technology (Ashburner, 2001). Motivation on its own can be influenced by meaning or symbolic values people attribute to a specific technology (Eveland, 1996). For example, urine diversion dehydration toilets (UDDT) are sometimes rejected on the grounds that South African citizens view dry-‐sanitation as second-‐ class sanitary services and aspire to have the same technologies as the white population (E Roma, Philp, Buckley, Xulu, & Scott, 2013). The perceptions that influence the acceptance rates of the sanitation solution are in this case thus created by historical factors; negligence of black neighborhoods during apartheid, and are seen to inhibit successful implementation.

An interesting approach to this heterogeneous group, which is partially building on Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), is Mikael Collan’s Lazy User Behaviour Theory. This theory suggests ‘that a user will most often choose the solution (device) that will fulfill her (information) needs with the least effort’ (Collan, 2007, p. 1). This theory seems useful as it is seen that in some cases UDT’s are being discarded as unsuitable only because the old-‐fashioned pit-‐latrines had closer proximity to people’s homes (E Roma et al., 2013). However sometimes it might be seen that even though one option obviously costs the least effort, another option is still preferred and thus more widely used. This poses interesting questions as to what people see as sufficing arguments to increase efforts related to the use of a (new) technology. What potential benefits or incentives need to be provided in order for people to no longer act as so called “lazy actors?”

These are just some aspects on the user side that influence the acceptance of technologies. Needless to say there are so many more tangible and intangible factors that contribute to the acceptance of technologies.

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2.2 Implementers

On the other end of the spectrum, where technologies are designed and proposed as the solution to a certain (policy) problem, are the designers, policymakers and other bureaucrats; the implementers. These are the people behind desks thinking about the difficulties faced by the people in the field. They think about the properties the solution should hold, ideally through careful assessment of the users’ needs. These implementers embody several of the relevant social groups playing an important role in the technology development process (Bijker, 2009; Klein & Kleinman, 2002; Pinch & Bijker, 1984). This process is described as ‘Technology development is a process in which multiple groups, each embodying a specific interpretation of an artifact, negotiate over its design, with different social groups seeing and constructing quite different objects’ (Klein & Kleinman, 2002, p. 29). This quote also demonstrates what will later be referred to as interpretive flexibility of a technological object. This is important as the implementers might have a different perception of a solution than the users. Their perception is likely to be the dominant one in the decision making process as they have the authority to enforce policies (top-‐down approach) and they are the ones making the executive decisions.

Austin and Duncker identify three key principles that the sanitation sector should keep in mind when designing and implementing new sanitation technologies (Austin & Duncker, 2002);

-‐ Sanitation solutions need to be low-‐cost in order for people to have a choice. -‐ The toilet design needs to be in line with local practices and believes;

different needs, climates and customs need to be taken into account.

-‐ Toilets are user products: the user needs to be provided with options in terms of different design properties.

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2.3 Political sanitation landscape

Peri-‐urban settlements pose a complicated work environment for policy makers everywhere. They possess both urban and rural traits and ‘consist of highly heterogeneous and rapidly changing socio-‐economic groups’ (Allen, Dávila, & Hofmann, 2006). This makes it complex to address all of the inhabitants’ needs, especially since social stratification within these areas is often high. Additionally there is a multiplicity of actors involved in the governance of these areas and no one tends to be the leader (ibid). If two authorities work simultaneously in the same area they are likely to obstruct each other rather than reinforcing each other and providing backup. On top of that the areas are geographically too far from the densely populated city centers to be connected to centralized wastewater systems, whilst investment costs to construct new infrastructure are too high (ibid). Residents often fall back on informal solutions to solve their water and sanitation issues.

In South Africa, and particularly in Kwazulu-‐Natal (KZN), a dual system of governance is in place consisting of the democratically elected government (currently the African National Congress (ANC)), and the traditional. The exact rules and regulations governing these collaborations differ in each area and are the result of long and complex historical struggles and negotiations. The status of chief is an inherited one, appointed by god, and they are given a lot of power by the ANC. However it should not be forgotten that they are a strongly hierarchical and patriarchal institution that often conflicts with basic human rights and gender equality (Beall, Mkhize, & Vawda, 2004). People are seen to value some of the customary traditions that come with the chieftaincy but in an ideal democratic political landscape the chieftaincies are to let go of their grip on resources, especially communal land (ibid).

The political sanitation landscape has no direct influence on the acceptance of a technology but it is the environment in which it is being implemented. Later on this will be described as the wider context (Social Construction of Technology) and

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facilitating conditions (Venkatesh’ UTAUT model). This context can have an enabling or a disabling function, and influences people’s perceptions, mindsets and attitudes, it is therefore important to include in order to acquire a complete picture of what is going on.

2.4 Technology

2.4.1 What is technology

Technologies help humankind to control and adapt to ‘natural’ environments. A frequently used definition of technology in social science stems from Read Bain: “technology includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments,

housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which we produce and use them” (Bain, 1973 p. 860). Phrased differently, but more

enchanting, is Stiegler’s definition: ‘the pursuit of life by means other than life’

(Stiegler, 1998, p. 17). More importantly Borgmann states that technology is ‘an activity that forms or changes culture (Borgmann, 2006).

Technology in this thesis will be seen as a process rather than a rigid entity. Through the process of use it is also shaped, and the question implicitly raised is whether by making a technology fluid and malleable, and thus making the end user a co-‐ designer while using it, the acceptance rates increase. This is a fundamentally different stance from approaches to technology where a technology was designed to the best of ones knowledge to hope for the highest acceptance rates possible by the end user. This is a static approach and does not leave a lot of space for adjustments later on. An example of a successful technology is the Zimbabwe Bush Pump, whose achievements are largely ascribed to its fluidity and simplicity (Laet & Mol, 2000). Additionally ‘technologies’ is interpreted as the more basic technologies available to those residing in peri-‐urban settlements. So in short anything that helps to enable, or even improve, access to water and sanitation where in absence of this technology it would have been more difficult.

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When approaching technologies as fluid they are not seen as things but as actors because they ‘do’ things and have activities. Here actor is thus no longer the original entity of being human and acting rational, but is updated to encompass more than that (ibid). Recently, the shaping activities of technologies have become widely acknowledged, resulting in counter-‐movements.

Two of these are neo-‐luddism, which opposes modern technology all together and is often viewed as technophobic (Jones, 2013), and anarcho-‐primitivism, _which

criticizes the origins of the current civilization and roots for abandonment of modern organizational technologies in order to reduce social inequalities and stratification (Humphrey, 2007). On the other hand there are those who believe in technologies to enhance human capacities like transhumanism, which is an intellectual movement that believes in the transformation and enhancement of the human condition through advanced technologies that improve the intellectual, physical and psychological capacities of humans (Bostrom, 2005). Lastly there is techno-‐progressivism, which believes in the convergence of technological and social change. Followers believe that technology empowers and emancipates if supported by accountable and legitimate democratic authorities (Carrico & Mundi, 2006; Mundi, 2005). Authorities can thus pose a barrier to the rightful implementation and outcomes of technological innovations, especially in less stable countries in the global south.

2.4.2 Acceptance of technologies

What makes certain technologies more prone to be accepted than others? How do technologies spread geographically and socially? Rogers (2010) defined four factors influencing the diffusion of a technology; the innovation itself, the communication channels, the time and the social system. Focused on the technology itself he believes the following aspects to influence its likelihood to be accepted: its relative advantage, its compatibility with pre-‐existing systems, its complexity or difficulty to learn, its try ability or testability and its potential for reinvention (Rogers, 2010). Fred Davis came up with the Technology Acceptance Model in 1989. This model

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defines the causal relationship between system design features, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward using and actual usage behavior (Davis, 1993). The main factors influencing acceptance of a technology according to Davis are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. However, one of the most important properties of a technology influencing its acceptance rates is its fluidity. When a technology is rigid and not multi-‐interpretable, it is likely to cater to only one homogeneous group of end users and not to a wide variety in (culturally) different places (Laet & Mol, 2000).

The fluidity and flexibility embedded in the design of a technology enables end users to use it in multiple ways, this adds to the usefulness and value for a specific user. Each individual can adjust and add or take what he or she wants from a technology and make it essential for his or her use. When the design is rigid, the user cannot change anything to make it more useful and will reject it if it is not exactly what she wants (ibid). In the same way, if a technology comes with specific user instructions, and will malfunction if they are not observed strictly, acceptance is likely to be low as well as that complicated reparation procedures and expensive spare parts lower acceptance rates.

Lungu (Lungu, 2007) states; ‘the degree of acceptance in a community is measured by willingness to adopt or invest in that technology’ (p. 6). However accepting or rejecting technologies is not something that happens actively or consciously but rather something that happens subconsciously. A well-‐developed model is the

Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) developed by Venkatesh, although this model is geared towards information technologies it poses an interesting concept for other technologies as well. This theory was created through the study and subsequent assemblage of eight technology acceptance

models1 of which some have been discussed above. It states that the degree of

acceptance is mainly influenced by the following factors; performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions.

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The performance expectancy is defined as ‘the degree to which an individual believes

that using the technology will help him or her to attain gains in (job) performance’. This factor is said to be the strongest predictor for whether someone is adopting a new technology or not, both in mandatory and voluntary settings (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2014). Performance expectancy is a merged indicator based on perceived usefulness, extrinsic motivation, relative advantage and outcome expectations. The effort expectancy is defined as ‘the degree of ease associated with the use of the system’ (ibid). It is constructed out of two different indicators namely (perceived) ease of use and complexity. Important to note is that Venkatesh’ states that this indicator plays a role right after implementation of a new technology, and that it will lose importance when looking at long term acceptance. Mostly because if the technology has been assessed as too difficult it is likely to have already been discarded before it even comes to long-‐term use (ibid).

The social influence is defined as ‘the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he/she should use the technology’. It is a merged indicator constructed out of subjective norm, social factors and image. Venkatesh et al (2014) state that ‘The role of social influence in technology acceptance decisions is complex and subject to a wide range of contingent influences’. Additionally the extent to which each of these factors play a role is moderated by gender, age, experience and

voluntariness2 (Venkatesh et al., 2014). Age for example plays a salient role with the

effort expectancy as elderly often struggle to quickly adapt to new routines and or

systems (ibid).

A quick review of the literature written on acceptance of mostly sanitary technologies shows a variety of reasons that affect its acceptance. These range from privacy and cleanliness concerns to participatory issues (Elisa Roma, Buckley, Jefferson & Jeffrey, 2010). The participation of the end users in planning and decision-‐making is seen to increase the sustainability of toilets by creating a sense

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of ownership and responsibility (ibid). Additionally lack of affordability, lack of safety, disillusionment with technology providers when problems are not adequately addressed, (economic) benefits being unclear to end users and conflicting perceptions and expectations of sanitation systems are mentioned as obstacles to successful implementation and acceptance (Holden, Terreblanche, & Muller, 2003; Thompson, Masiya, & Wet, 2013). Also important to note is that studies found motivations to build and use toilets are more often related to comfort, convenience, status, privacy and dignity rather than perceived public health benefits (Evans, 2005; Jenkins & Curtis, 2005; O’Reilly & Louiss’, 2014).

So far in many of the models and theories there was a clear divide between the technology and the user. The TAM tries to describe links between traits of users and technologies but unfortunately this divide is not always clearly demarcated, as they are influencing and re-‐establishing each other constantly. To describe this relationship, Bruno Latour and Madeleine Akrich (1992) developed the script approach to technologies. They state that every technology holds a ‘script’ meaning it can prescribe actions of the actors involved (Latour, 1992; Verbeek, 2006). This overlaps with defining a technology as a process and an actor as mentioned before. By implicitly agreeing to influence actions of actors an ethical question arises; to what extent is it acceptable to do so and who decides what is a ‘good’ way to do so? When looked at from Ihde’s perspective, which is that of technological intentionality, stating that technologies have transforming capacities, and ‘play an active role in the relationship between humans and their world’ (Idhe, 1990) this becomes even more apparent. Technologies could in a way thus conflict with the foundations of democracy; moreover, subconsciously guiding people in certain directions is an endeavor that should be approached with extreme delicacy.

However, in the context of water and sanitation technologies, the tools designed, as well as the practices they promote, are generally accepted to be life improving or even lifesaving. It should be noted though, that if values and meanings are inscribed in a technology, the transfer to a different value/meaning context is questionable and possibly significantly influences the acceptance of the technology. Moreover,

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when the inscription is a given, it should be questioned in what respect the acceptance of a technology reshapes those accepting it, for better or for worse.

2.4.3 The social construction of technology

Technologies cannot be seen as objects alone, as Klein & Kleinman (2002) put it; ‘technology and society are part of a reciprocal or dialectical process in which each constructs the other’ (p. 35). This is the starting point of what is known as the ‘social construction of technology’ framework (SCOT). Bijker and Pinch developed this agency-‐centered approach in 1987. The main philosophy being that technology does not determine human action, but rather that human action shapes technology; they emphasize that non-‐technical factors are important for understanding the development of technology (Bijker, 2009; Pinch & Bijker, 1984). In other words, if you want to look into the acceptance or rejection of a technology, you should look at the social world instead of limiting yourself to the technology. Stating that a technology is ‘good’ is insufficient; you need to assess who defines it as good and how they define ‘good’ to begin with.

The SCOT framework consists of four components of which the first one is interpretive flexibility. This means that a technology means different things to different people, and is subsequently interpreted differently. This coincides with design flexibility which means that ‘whatever the design (is) that finally results from the process, it could have been different’ (Klein & Kleinman, 2002, p. 29). Referring to the fact that ‘technological artifacts are sufficiently underdetermined to allow for multiple designs’ (ibid) (p. 29). Different groups in different societies face different problems, leading to different solutions to be designed. Whilst enabling the same action but differently designed, a technology might have a better fit with local and/or personal beliefs and circumstances; a design is only a single point in the large field of technical possibilities.

The second component is ‘the relevant social group’, constituting of all social groups that are involved in the design process. More often than not the end user is

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marginalized or even excluded in the design process, meaning that the end-‐product is built upon meanings attached to a certain artifact that differ from the meanings attached to it by those who will actually be using it. They state that ‘the sociocultural and political situation of a social group shapes its norms and values, which in turn influences the meaning given to an artefact’ (Pinch & Bijker, 1984, p. 428). This goes mostly for the more static approach to designing technologies. When approached as a process in which the development does not end with the designers but continues in the phase where it is used, the end user automatically becomes a relevant social group. However the needs of this relevant social group might not have been given enough importance in the design process. For the users to become co-‐designers, the technology needs to have some fluidity embedded in its design. Regarding the sociocultural and political situation as a shaping influence for the relevant social group, another important component for this research comes up; ‘the wider context’; the wider sociocultural and political milieu in which artifact development takes place (ibid). This means that if the development of a certain technology has taken place in one specific sociocultural context the transferability of it becomes questionable.

A clear example is the water closet (WC), which has been developed in environments where water is widely available; needless to say that when this solution is transferred to desert-‐like surroundings adjustments are required, if transferring it is a good idea to begin with. With the aforementioned relevant social groups it is implicitly assumed that they are all equal and subsequently equally represented in the design process. As I have mentioned before, this is certainly not always the case, especially where technologies are to travel globally and across different socio-‐cultural and environmental contexts. This may lead to extensive problems in the post-‐development phase (ibid).

The last important concept of the SCOT framework is the broader theoretical framework in which the central concept is the ‘technological frame’; each relevant social group has such a technological frame. It is likely that a person is part of more than one relevant social group and will thus have multiple technological frames. A

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technological frame ‘structures the interactions among the members of a relevant social group, and shapes their thinking and acting’ (ibid) (p. 69). The technological frame helps to explain the influence of the technical on the social. A dominant technological frame can help to build up ‘technological momentum’, the development of an artifact can get a specific direction and a speed, guided by investments it gets harder and harder to change the direction of the development. The shape of the technology might influence society and what it values as normal.

2.5 Main aim of research

Venkatesh’ model has been chosen as the leading model for this research. Because it neglects the properties of the technology and how society forms these, I will combine Venkatesh’ model with the SCOT. The UTAUT model covers the more actor-‐centered part of the research focusing on perceptions and expectations from both users and implementers, whereas the SCOT part of the theory will focus on how these perceptions and expectancies are constructed whilst also adding an important technology-‐centered flavor to the final analysis. From the literature review many issues regarding performance and effort expectancies (though named differently) came up but their underlying perceptions and structures have not been researched; the coming into being of these perceptions and the difference between the expectancies of different relevant social groups has been neglected. By applying Venkatesh’ model to the UDT situation in Durban it is hoped that new insights come to light, especially when combined with an assessment of some of the technology’s properties. The main research question of this research is thus as follows;

What factors explain the acceptance or rejection of sanitation technologies in a peri-‐ urban settlement in Durban, South Africa?

To adequately answer this question the following sub questions have been formulated;

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-‐ How do implementers’ and users’ perceptions vary in terms of performance and effort expectancies, as well as perceived influence by other social actors (‘social influence’)?

-‐ How do facilitating conditions, including the political sanitation landscape, influence the process of technology uptake?

-‐ How does the design of the technology in terms of fluidity allow for adaptation by diverse users and unexpected uses?

All of the important factors are summarized in a conceptual scheme, see Image 1.

Image 1 -‐ Conceptual scheme.

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3 E M P I R I C A L C O N T E X T

South Africa is a beautiful country, situated on the most southern part of the African continent, bordering Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique whilst

harboring two

independent kingdoms; Lesotho and Swaziland. It encompasses some of the world’s most astonishing wildlife parks like the Kruger National Park and is a very popular destination for European tourists. South Africa is the most Westernized country in sub-‐Saharan Africa and had, until very recently Nigeria surpassed them, the largest economy of the continent (The Economist, 2014). Subsequently in terms of development South Africa is far ahead compared to all of its neighboring countries. This is one of the main reasons for a large number of migrants from other African countries to go and find their luck in the South African economy. The development, unfortunately, reaches only a small part of the privileged population. The black middle-‐class does emerge in cities like Johannesburg, Durban and Cape-‐Town but is still more the exception than the rule.

This high inequality is often thought to be the cause of the high crime-‐rates. They are amongst the highest in the world and a lot of highly educated people have left the country for safety related reasons (Demombynes & Özler, 2005). As with so many of South Africa’s problems, the existing inequality is a direct consequence of South Africa’s very painful apartheid history. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation, in place from 1948 till 1994. The oppression of mostly blacks was enforced through legislation put in place by the National Party (NP) consisting of Image 2 -‐ Map of South Africa. Image: Google Maps.

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mostly Afrikaners and Boers (Clark & Worge, 2013). Whilst it officially ended in 1994, it is still a part of everyday life where ever you go. Large parts of the population vividly remember the days they were oppressed based on skin-‐color, and thus bear a large resentment against their former oppressors; white people. Progress has been made due to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which is generally said to have been successful (Gade, 2013) but both in everyday reality and in the minds of the people not a lot has changed.

This inequality is also clearly visible in Durban, the third biggest city of South Africa, with almost 600.000 inhabitants and nearly 3,5 million in its metropolitan area. The metropolitan area covers approximately 2,292 square kilometers making it one of

the biggest cities on the east cost of Africa (Demarcation, 2012). The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (EM) is situated in the KwaZulu-‐Natal province. It has a humid subtropical climate; frost-‐free and dry winters and hot and humid summers, whilst occasionally being subjected to tropical and heavy thunderstorms. The vast part of the population consists of black Africans (51%), followed by Indian or Asian (24%), white (15%), colored (9%) and other (1%). The three most spoken languages are English (50%), isiZulu (33%) and isiXhosa (6%) (Durban Census, 2011).

In South Africa the government, more specifically the Department of Water Affairs (DWA), is in charge of the policy setting. Through government owned water boards they manage the bulk water supply infrastructure and are responsible for water and sanitation service delivery (Bond, 2008a). South Africa’s bill of rights is one of the only ones in the world guaranteeing citizens’ rights to water (Loftus, 2009). Additionally ‘The Constitution of South Africa assigns the responsibility for the provision of water services, and the setting of tariffs, to local government’ (Ethekwini water and sanitation unit, 2014). This has been seen as an effective way of ensuring high quality services as Gounden & Pfaff (2006) state: ‘This centralisation of sustainable service delivery in the hands of the eThekwini Water and Sanitation Department (EWS) encourages focus on outcomes, rather than outputs, and makes the primary drive sustainability (quality), rather than numbers (quantity)’ (p. 24).

Factors influencing acceptance of sanitation technologies in South Africa