Adoção de tecnologia de saneamento ecológico: um estudo em uma comunidade indígena no Estado do Ceará

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization data, there are currently 2.4 billion people, or a third of the world’s population, without access to proper sanitary installations that can actually isolate human excreta in a safe way. Nevertheless, solving this problem is not only a matter of building more toilets, water points or sewage systems. Jenkins and Curtis (2005) as well as Lima and Marques (2012) point out that for sanitation interventions to reach the necessary coverage to minimize the existing gaps related to the provision of this service, it is needed to understand what generates the demand and how to motivate more individuals to adopt such sanitation technologies. In this sense, this study assumed as general objective to analyze wich factors influenced the adoption of the evapotranspiration tank as an ecological sanitation technology in an indigenous peri-urban community in Ceará. Aiming to analyze the factors that influenced the adoption of these evapotranspiration tanks, the present study employed a qualitative approach of descriptive and exploratory nature. Data collection occurred through semistructed interviews with different actors, direct observation and documental analysis. The data analysis adopted as categories the contextual, behavioral and technological dimensions from the Integrated Behavorial Model for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (IBM-WASH) proposed by Dreibelbis et al. (2013). Moreover, data analysis was performed by using the content analysis technique with the support of the software Nvivo 10. Among the identified factors in the contextual dimension were highlighted the existence of public policies and the availability of water in the community. In the psychosocial realm were foregrounded the action of community leaders and the lack of popular mobilization. In addition, in the technological dimension were pointed out the integral subsidies to build the technology and the lack of monitoring during and after the implementation of these green sewers. Thus, the findings displayed in this study corroborate with the argument presented in the literature about the issue, in which improvements in the sanitation conditions go beyond the construction of material infrastructure and, in fact, they are part of a wide process of social transformation.