Hazardous Spatiality, Health Exposure, and Everyday Urbanism of the Precariously Housed in Nigeria

Abstract

Majority of precariously housed, particularly women, work in the informal sector and rely on informal livelihoods for sustenance. They reside in marginalized communities and dwell in precarious housing such as informal, make-shift housing, lagoon, garbage dumps, slums, and the streets. This spatiality is susceptible to serious ecological threats like flooding, heat waves, drought, and fire. The health of the precariously housed becomes compromised because of their living context. The precarious living environment exposes them to vector-borne diseases, water and food-borne diseases or illness and these impact on their well-being and quality of life. The hazardous spatiality and poorly ventilated housing expose them constantly to personal, occupational, and environmental ill-health. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning or incinerating waste or waste dumping in the rivers, increasing exposure to fossil fuels, particulate matters, hydrofluorocarbons, short-lived climate pollutants lead to climate anxiety, mental health, stress, ill-health, sickness, disease, and death among the precariously housed. Based on secondary data, observation, and experiential insights this paper presents an overview of the exposure and health of urban dwellers who live unsustainably and are at the frontlines of climate crisis. The paper suggests entrenching the ethic of care in planning as part of the whole-systems approach to address the health, well-being of people and fragility of the ecosystems during any climate crisis or disaster. Ethics of care is based on rights and justice, moralities of responsibility of care for the environment through gender equality.