Thresholds of Necessity: Dalit Open Defecation, Liminal Space, and the Politics of Shared Survival

Sanitation is typically framed as a question of infrastructure, hygiene, and development. Public discourse often treats open defecation as a problem to be solved through policy, technology, and behavioral change. While these concerns are important, they can obscure the deeper social structures that shape how sanitation is experienced. In a caste society, access to toilets, water, and waste systems is unevenly distributed, and practices around sanitation are embedded within histories of exclusion, labour, and spatial segregation. To theorize Dalit open defecation as a liminal shared space is therefore not to romanticize deprivation, but to examine how necessity produces forms of collective presence, negotiation, and, at times, solidarity within constrained conditions.

Open defecation occupies a peculiar position in social life. It occurs at the margins—fields, edges of settlements, railway tracks, riverbanks—spaces that are neither fully public nor fully private. These are threshold zones, where the body steps outside the regulated interiors of the home yet remains within the social field. Such spaces are often shaped by caste geography: who lives where, who has access to infrastructure, and whose bodies are permitted proximity to shared resources.

For Dalit communities, the lack of access to private sanitation has historically been tied to broader patterns of marginalization. Settlements are often located at the periphery, infrastructure arrives unevenly, and the burden of inadequate facilities is borne collectively. In this context, open defecation becomes not a choice but a condition structured by inequality.

Yet within this condition, the act itself takes on a social dimension. It is rarely a purely individual activity. People move in groups, at particular times—early morning, late evening—navigating safety, visibility, and privacy together. These routines produce a form of collective temporality, where bodies synchronize their movements within shared constraints.

The space of open defecation thus becomes a liminal commons—a space defined not by ownership but by shared use under conditions of necessity. In these spaces, social interactions unfold: conversations, exchanges, moments of humor, and the quiet coordination of daily life. The body, often subject to stigma and regulation, enters into a collective rhythm that blurs the boundary between private need and social existence.

This liminality is significant. The space is outside the formal structures of the state and the home, yet it is deeply shaped by both. It reveals the gap between policy and lived experience, between the promise of development and the realities of uneven access. At the same time, it creates a zone where the rigid boundaries of caste can be momentarily reconfigured—not dissolved, but negotiated.

From a theoretical perspective, such spaces can be understood through the lens of embodied survival practices. When institutional systems fail to provide basic infrastructure, communities develop routines that allow life to continue. These practices are not inherently liberatory; they are responses to constraint. Yet within them, forms of mutual awareness and coordination emerge.

The idea of solidarity in this context must be approached carefully. It does not arise from ideal conditions but from shared exposure to vulnerability. Individuals recognize each other within the same structural condition, navigating risk and necessity together. This recognition can produce a subtle form of mutual presence, a sense that one is not alone within the experience of marginalization.

At the same time, these spaces are marked by tension. Issues of gender, safety, and dignity are deeply implicated. For women, the need to seek privacy in exposed environments introduces additional risks, shaping how and when these spaces are used. The liminal commons is therefore not a neutral site; it is structured by multiple layers of power.

The politics of sanitation in caste society cannot be separated from the history of labour. The stigmatization of certain forms of work—particularly those involving waste—has long been tied to caste hierarchy. Open defecation exists alongside this history, revealing how the management of waste is unevenly distributed across social groups.

In contemporary discourse, efforts to eliminate open defecation often focus on infrastructure and behavior. While these are necessary, they can sometimes overlook the social relations that shape how infrastructure is accessed and used. Without addressing these underlying structures, the transformation of sanitation practices remains incomplete.

To conceptualize Dalit open defecation as a liminal shared space is therefore to shift attention from abstraction to lived experience. It highlights how bodies navigate environments shaped by inequality, how routines of necessity produce forms of social interaction, and how spaces at the margins reveal the limits of formal systems.

Importantly, this analysis does not celebrate the condition. The goal is not to preserve such spaces but to understand what they reveal about the organization of society. The existence of these liminal zones points to the need for more equitable distribution of resources and a rethinking of how dignity is understood in relation to the body.

At the same time, recognizing the forms of collective life that emerge within these spaces allows for a more nuanced understanding of survival under constraint. Even in conditions shaped by deprivation, individuals create patterns of coordination, recognition, and, at times, quiet resilience.

The threshold, then, is both a site of exposure and a site of insight. It reveals the fragility of systems that claim universality while excluding many, and it shows how communities inhabit and negotiate these exclusions. In this sense, the politics of sanitation becomes inseparable from the broader politics of caste, where the most basic aspects of life—space, body, and necessity—are structured by inequality.