Rural household waste management practices : the case of Ala Ajagbusi rural village, Nigeria

Abstract: Waste management practices in Ala Ajagbusi rural village, Nigeria, is a point of interaction among villagers, and between villagers and civil society organizations. The interaction is seen in the waste generation, waste sweeping, waste storage, waste disposal and collective management of waste in spaces perceived as commons. The interactions are at the level of intra household and inter household. This thesis focuses on households’ members’ waste management practices. The relevant motifs of empirical findings are painstakingly chosen and theorized through well-connected theories - Michael Foucault’s governmentality, Elinor Ostrom’s governing the common pool resource, Jurgen Haberma's Public sphere transformation, and Susal Gal’s semiotic of public and private. This aimed to answer the research questions. Such as how do members of households handle and make sense of their waste management practices? How do they distinguish between spaces concerning waste management? How the waste management is socially organized within village? And how the households interact with the state and other public entities concerning waste management? This thesis presents waste management study as it makes sense to members of the households. In that sense, it adopts qualitative as a research approach and phenomenology as a research design. The former and the later served as bedrocks upon which the data collection methods were chosen (Interview, focus group, and participants’ observation) and the interview questions were structured respectively. The results show that villagers generate waste types like plastic materials, paper materials, metallic materials and organic materials. Waste is perceived as useless. Waste is stored unsorted in privately owned bowls and sacks. Sometimes waste is left at the back of the house in an arranged manner to dry. Waste disposal methods are burning and dumping. Burning of waste in the village is a common practice during the dry seasons. There are several dumping spaces in the village. Villagers walk some miles away from home before they can empty their waste bowl. They perceive that unemptied waste bowl is a breeding host for diseases’ vectors. In this sense, the villagers and the civil society organization (NURTW) involve in waste management for fear of contracting diseases. The villagers collectively sweep the surroundings of the households, usually every week in a rotational manner. They collectively burn and liberate waste under power line and inside drainage respectively. The study shows that spaces that villagers collectively managed are perceived as public spaces. The villagers regard the waste in the public spaces as public goods which should be managed by the local government. The perception of the villagers of a space whether it is a public space or private space with respect to waste management is informed by the social object of responsibility; as in who has the responsibility to manage waste in individual family room, waste in a household and waste outside a household. The villagers recalibrate the entire household as private space when collectively manage waste in a village public spaces, such as under power line, in a drainage, and in a waterway. Whereas, before the recalibration, the room and surroundings of a household are calibrated as personal and public spaces respectively. The villagers have no engagement with state and local government concerning waste management. The village has no waste management structure at the village level. This is caused by the land dispute crisis in the village. Individual members of households and civil organization deploy self-technology to order and shape their waste management behavior. The villagers take waste management closer to their heart because of fear of contracting diseases.