Women's Agency in Clean Water and Sanitation Management in Riverbank Settlements of Banjarmasin City: A Commons Governance and Feminist Standpoint Analysis
Abstract
Banjarmasin, known as the “City of a Thousand Rivers”, has a large share of dense riverbank communities in which clean water and sanitation problems remain only partially resolved despite steadily improving national indicators. This study aims to analyse the pattern of gender relations in community-based clean water and sanitation management in the riverbank settlements of Banjarmasin City and to explain that pattern through the frameworks of commons governance and feminist standpoint theory. The study applies a descriptive qualitative approach combining secondary data analysis (desk research) of scientific publications, official government reports, and regional policy documents with semi-structured interviews with three purposively selected women informants; the data were analysed through data reduction, thematic categorisation, and narrative interpretation. The results show that women are empirically the main users and managers of household water and sanitation resources in riverbank areas, yet their participation in formal decision-making on river governance and water-sanitation infrastructure, including the Tripikon-S technology, remains confined to the technical-implementation level. Three patterns were confirmed through the interviews: women are positioned solely as water users rather than policymakers, they are underrepresented in public deliberation spaces, and domestic gender relations position them as the household’s primary water providers. It is concluded that water and sanitation problems in riverbank settlements are not merely technical and infrastructural but also institutional and epistemic, so that gender-just water governance requires strengthening women’s formal representation in community-based commons management at the sub-district level.
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