Though informal water vendors are ubiquitous in much of the developing world, they often exist in peripheral spaces and in tension with government actors. This paper seeks to understand when, and why, vendors are perceived as illegitimate despite growing efforts to incorporate their contributions into formal supply. Using evidence from a case study in Kisumu, Kenya, I explore how processes of legitimisation and stigmatisation are used to enact different hydrosocial imaginaries, and how the renegotiation of these imaginaries shapes the (il)legitimacy of informal water vendors. I apply critical discourse analysis to locate these processes within policies, planning documents, and key informant interviews with local, regional, and national actors. I find that while national actors have increasingly legitimised and destigmatised informal modes of water supply, this shift has lagged at regional and local levels. The findings contribute to the growing literature on urban informality by demonstrating that the disciplining of informality occurs through processes beyond the state, including through everyday processes of legitimisation and stigmatisation.
Gina Gilson (Fri,) studied this question.