The Potty Project

Key Takeaway 07 is “slum communities manifest multiple levels of transience that constrain people’s agency over their sanitary environment.” Residents of a slum are in a permanent state of transience regardless of the time they have spent in the community. The prospect of moving to a better place of residence, however remote, might stall action to improve one’s current situation, and keep people from investing in amenities related to sanitation.

Migrant workers sending money home view their situation simply as a way of earning money and are not concerned about their own hardships. A large proportion of migrant population in search of employment entails men living without their families. Recent migrants are also often blamed as the root cause of the problems. For example, a resident of Zamrudhpur, a vertical slum area in Delhi, said “I used to live in a different building which consisted of a large number of migrants. That building was much dirtier than my current one: there was lots of garbage left around and the toilets were very unclean.“ This may be an indication of the way in which transience manifests itself in the quality of an individual’s living situation.