Water we going to do about the community-led management model?

Before I look at ways to improve the community-led management model,  I want to touch on another notion I briefly mentioned in my last blog. That is the idea of Western 'cultural idealisation' (Cleaver, 2002). Although formed out of good intentions, this community-led management model can be seen as a 'blueprint' because its aim to reduce state involvement and empower individual communities aligns closely with neoliberal ideas that are strongly backed by NGOs and development agencies (Harvey and Reed, 2006). The reason why I bring this up is because I believe that it is partly these cultural idealisations upon which the model was built, that have hindered the effectiveness of these well-intentioned WASH initiatives. I will use Cleaver's notion of institutional bricolage to explain. 

Institutional bricolage is the 'assembly of parts and adaptation of norms, values and arrangements to suit a new purpose' (Cleaver, 2001). It recognises that the strategies introduced in community-led management models (such as resource management and community action) are often strategies that have been constructed, borrowed and introduced by existing institutions. While it encourages bottom-up decision-making, institutions in some ways, still 'do the thinking' for the people (Douglas, 1987). For example, I mentioned in my last blog, the common arrangement of having a single leader or committee 'own' and manage water and sanitation services. It is one thing to ask who gets to decide who in the community is allocated to this hierarchy of management? It is another to ask whose idea was it to implement this hierarchy in the first place? It is often institutions who encourage this formal management structure with clear social roles and in doing so, they assign particular identities of representation to certain community individuals. There are however risks to this, such as the risk of 'elite capture' that I mentioned in my last blog, or the risk of misrepresenting the interests of the whole community. The insistence of formal institutions to implement a management hierarchy therefore fails to recognise the social or cultural embeddedness in a community-led program that cannot be filtered through a single leader or committee. Institutional bricolage, however recognises this problem by..

1. Recognising the social embeddedness of community-led management. 

Community-led management happens beyond the visible structure set by formal institutions. Children and the young, for example 'play a major role in (WASH) resource use and management' (Cleaver 2001). They are however rarely incorporated in the management structure and are therefore excluded from the decision-making process. Linking to my third blog, if young girls do not have a say in the construction and management of sanitation facilities, this could greatly hinder their capacity to practice healthy menstrual hygiene management. Limiting management to a formal structure therefore ignores the social embeddedness of community-led management and may rupture the cooperation of everyday relations. This will not only reinforce social divisions but also reduce the success of interventions because it will not meet the needs of every individual in the community. Institutional bricolage recognises this exclusion outside the visible structure and allows 'bricoleurs' to apply their knowledge, power and agency to give them a voice for more effective community management (Cleaver 2001). 

2. Recognising the cultural embeddedness of community-led management.

There are complexities in cultural identities (differing norms, taboos, practices) within a single community. Linking to my second blog, just like how notions of human excreta and defecation can differ across communities, the same can happen within communities. Within communities, for example, ideas about the healing potential of dirt and the 'blessing and cursed' powers linked to the handling of child waste products can be common in some households and not in others (Akpabio & Takara, 2014). Institutional bricolage recognises these differing cultural beliefs and attempts to renegotiate norms to implement the best practices across the community (Cleaver 2001). Community-led management is therefore also culturally embedded. There must be an appreciation of cultural codes and a social respect amongst the diverse range of stakeholders for these codes if the model is to be more effective. 

While I  am not saying there should be a total disregard for the 'modern' design of the community-led management model, there should be a mix of formal, informal, modern and traditional methods with a focus on compromise and negotiation (Cleaver 2002). Drawing from this concept of institutional bricolage will allow for the model to move beyond Western cultural idealisations of bureaucratic, formalised arrangements to arrangements that are more socially and culturally embedded, allowing for more effective WASH interventions. 

If you're interested in concept of institutional bricolage, I would encourage you to watch this video by Frances Cleaver