Everyday practices in the production of uneven water pricing regimes in Lilongwe, Malawi

Lejla H Pihljak, Maria Rusca, Cecilia Alda-Vidal and Klaas Schwartz
Additional contact information
Lejla H Pihljak: Independent researcher, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Maria Rusca: Uppsala University, Sweden; Center of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Sweden
Cecilia Alda-Vidal: The University of Manchester, UK
Klaas Schwartz: 84743UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands; University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Environment and Planning C, 2021, vol. 39, issue 2, 300-317

Abstract: Recent scholarship has called for widening investigations of cities through the analysis of everyday practices that shape urban life. Critical water studies have contributed to this emerging debate by using an everyday lens to document the diversity of practices of accessing and distributing water. Thus far, little attention has been given to the everyday practices of setting water prices and how these shape access. We contribute to this gap by investigating the practices of setting prices in two distinct service modalities within Lilongwe’s water supply network. Our study reveals the hybrid and dynamic arrangements that shape pricing regimes, formed through the formal and informal negotiations on subsidies, incentives, tariff increases and distribution of profits. In these negotiations, the decision makers opportunistically mobilise their different and at times conflicting mandates (business and social) and guiding principles (equity versus cost-recovery). We conclude that pricing regimes are the outcome of intertwined structural processes and everyday practices that exacerbate uneven water flows in the city.

Keywords: Everyday practices; urban water supply; pricing regimes; uneven waterscape (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399654419856021 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:39:y:2021:i:2:p:300-317

DOI: 10.1177/2399654419856021

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning C
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().