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ANTHROPOLOGICAL ISSUES
ON WATER SOCIAL MANAGEMENT
From communal to individual practices and perceptions
Barbara Casciarri
WAMAKHAIR - CEDEJ
Dominant visions of anthropologists’ role in
(water) research programs
1.“soft” or “folkloric”
2. “instrumental”
Anthropologists as
specialists of “cultures”,
uses and customs,
way of thinking, beliefs
Anthropologists as
the ones who can “help
to solve problems”
they add complementary (not
essential) knowledge to
basic, structural, quantified
knowledge by other
disciplines
they speak the language, live
near to the people, talk with
them, know them more
deeply, their work can
facilitate interventions
Possible contribution of « anthropology of water »
Assumptions
Hypotheses
• Anthropology should not
intervene to change reality
but to better understand it
• Centrality of water, ideal topic for global
holistic insight of social groups
• Water as more than physical ressource or
commodity
• Despite the economic value of water,
economy is often embedded in society
• Importance of rural background of urbanized
groups
• Shift from communal to individual practices
and perceptions with urbanization
• Anthropology supplies
technical approaches
(quantitative based) with
comprehensive social
understanding
(qualitative based)
CASE 1. Arab Farmers and Berber Nomads in Tiraf,
South-Eastern Morocco
Historical background and Social settings
Components:
• Ait Unzâr (Berber, nomads)
• Draoua/Shaqaf (Arab, farmers)
Economic activities :
• Agriculture (irrigated or rain-fed)
• Livestock raising (mobile or not)
• Trade (surplus on local markets)
• Wage labour (migration, army)
Bases of cohesion :
• the XIX century « protection pact »
• a shared territory (land and water)
CONCERNS of TRIBAL ASSEMBLY:
• Norms for water access and
management (irrigation and
domestic water)
• Decisions for economic
activities (agriculture and
herding)
• Solution of conflicts (internal
and with outsiders)
• Access to social services
(schools, hospitals, State aid)
• “Moral” matters and defense of
the image of the village
Ethno-tribal institutions in the village of Tiraf
Tribal General Assembly
(14 members)
taqbilt of Ait Unzâr
qabîla of Drâoua
(8 me mbers)
(6 me mbers)
4/4= arba’ rba’
Ait
Hammû
Ait Yusif
Ait Salah
Ait
Khûi Addi
3/3= tlâta tulut
Ait
Ereidâd
Lmedani
Shaqaf
Lhaddi
Shaqaf
Ahl
Tiraf
Water sources in Tiraf
Name
Type
Oued (wadi)
natural source
Saqyia
Origin of
water
floods
Duration
Property
status
since
seasonal
communal
always
irrigation canal floods + dam
seasonal
communal +
irrigation rights
village
foundation
Laouina
hand-dug
reservoir
rains
seasonal
communal
village
foundation
Hassi, Bir
hand-dug well
groundwater
perennial
communal
+ private
village
foundation
+ 90s
+ boreholes
Matfia
covered
reservoir
saqyia (canal)
seasonal
communal
+ private
70s
Rubûni
collective taps
borehole
perennial
communal
80s
Siterna
Lorry with
water tank
Town (State)
boreholes
occasional
(drought)
State
(free access)
2001
2004: individual taps with meters (and bills)
Before change:
despite private/familial property
(land or water rights), water is a
social collective affair
• local political institutions (tribal
assembly) fix norms (based on the
equality of rights), adapt them to
change, solve conflict upon water.
• to sell water to kin and neighbors or
to refuse access to water for basic
needs is both hashouma (shame, in
secular ethics) and harâm (forbidden,
in religious ethics)
Water = integrated in social norms,
institutions and values, water itself
reinforces the social cohesion of the
group
•
After change:
•
•
Developing of “egoistic” and irrational
uses:
– Generalization of scarcity of water
– Waste of water and loss of
“economic” attitudes
Water = “de-socialized” commodity
managed by individual perspective
– Loss of social (collective) control
– Breaking of solidarity/reciprocity
links and exchange networks
– Increasing differentiation between
households and villages
– Increasing of micro-level conflict
Case 2. pastoral groups of Butana and Southern Kordofan
Common features among some Sudanese pastoralists
Acccess to ressources (water/land):
• Herds (and fields) individual/familial
possession, BUT abstract general
appropriation of territory and
resources linked to wider (tribal) group
• Who belongs by descent to this group,
can claim priority rights on the
resources – though access to water can
be granted to “foreign” groups; rights
are inherited and inalienable
• The “tribal” group shares rights on
water, the duty of defending collective
resources and of taking in charge the
construction or maintenance of water
equipment; it is also responsible of the
rational/limited use of water points.
Socio-political institutions (gabîla):
• The gabila grants to its members
(formally egalitarian) rights on
resources of the common territory
• The gabila and its lineages assure the
concrete exploitation of resources and
its organization
• The presumed common kinship of the
gabila members , reinforces principles
of solidarity in sharing ressources
• The gabila “ethos”, condemns market
relations concerning fundamental
resources as water
• the gabila supplies a system of local
leadership, and respected
“mediators”, to settle conflicts upon
common resources
Processes of change
Dominance of pastoral way of life
(with subsistence orientation)
Developping of commoditization of
resources (and of labor)
•
•
•
•
Deep wells are built and maintained
by the larger gabila group (work
shared by different lineages, free
equal access , common defense)
•
Hafir (hand-dug reservoirs for rain
water) and shallow wells are built
and maintained by smaller gabila’s
segments (awlâd or khashum beit)
•
Water is not sold/bought neither
within the gabila nor to outsiders
•
Refusal to participate in collective
works for water equipment and
maintenance (loss or deterioration of
structures)
Trends by the well-off members of
the group to merchandise the “rights
on water” (or land) collective
resources
Increasing conflict with the outsiders
but also within the gabila
(the group’s solidarity is weakened)
Appearing of ecologically disruptive
attitudes
Final remarks and suggestions
to better seize « water issues »
•
•
•
•
Need to inquiry deeply (at the micro-level), much more widely and with an
historical perspective, on issues and domains that do not talk to us about water at
all.
neither to analyze only macro-economic trends nor to assume as universal the
criteria of liberal economy (maximization of individual gains, individual strategies,
demand/offer laws) BUT to take into account local strategies responding to
complex social rationality logics of groups whose economy is embedded in social
institutions
Not to see politics (management of power relations, solidarities and conflicts) at
the “upper levels” or only as formal institutions politics, BUT also at the level of
informal political institutions and local power arrangements
To see change as a complex (contradictory) process: changes at the micro-level
condition various domains of the whole social system in; techniques are also a
social matter: an innovation that seems to be purely technical (individual taps,
new pricing), can have wider and complex implications.
How to guarantee a satisfactory access to water
to those populations (communities with rural background),
knowing that urbanization does not transform them,
immediately and in all concerns, into “urban people”?
How to take into account their background and
to recognize some (collective) practices and values
as a source for “responsible” water uses and for solidarity
behavior – that can stand against scarcity and poverty?