The (in)visibility of sewage management and problematization as strategy for public awareness

Sewage management is crucial to the functioning of cities, yet, in global North, seldom acknowledged public. Wastewater infrastructures are mainly hidden underground and human excrement considered a private matter. However, make sanitation stay invisible, its dysfunctionality (e.g., leaking pipes, aging wastewater plants) sometimes acute need being highlighted. Moreover, work essential keep maintained needs be recognized compensated for. Based on interviews with actors sewage sector Sweden, news articles, public information campaigns, present article explores how political action engagement mobilized through moves between visibility invisibility. The analysis focuses four different modes problematization: inproblematization, problematization, deproblematization, unproblematization. Inscribed research fields urban engagement, sheds light secret managing feces upheld, balancing acts such as creating discursive space, negotiating infrastructural disruptions, making problems treatable, individualizing solutions. These problematization achieving right attention measures.