Empowerment through Sanitation: A qualitative study on public participation in Community-Led Total Sanitation

Sammanfattning: Public participation has gradually gained a stronghold within development theory during the last three decades. Researchers, policy-makers and aid workers share the belief that inclusion of beneficiaries in the development process is a prerequisite for purposeful and sustainable development of rural communities. The purpose of this thesis is to examine if participatory development leads to empowerment of rural 'poor'. In order to study this, a field study on a Community-Led Total Sanitation project was conducted in Mutomo, Kenya. Through a qualitative research approach interviews were conducted with key informants to examine the participant perception of CLTS. The empirical material collected during the field study illustrates the beneficiaries' embodiment of CLTS which correlates with the foundational pillars of this approach. The analysis further shows that some aspects of empowerment could be identified in the beneficiaries of CLTS. Through accumulation of collective knowledge and establishment of new organisational structures and networks, rural communities can be seen as collectively empowered.