Lisa Bossenbroek

Irrigation Management in the Pamirs in Tajikistan: A Man's Domain?

Abstract Families living in Gorno-Badakhshan—situated in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan—depend on irrigated agriculture to meet their subsistence needs. Because men predominate, and are most visible in, the operation and management of irrigation systems in this region, water-related activities are often labeled as masculine. Yet women historically played an important role in on-farm irrigation activities and even formed the majority of the agricultural workforce during the Soviet period. Today women are still responsible for the bulk of farming activities, including irrigation. This is partly a consequence of the difficulty of depending on farming alone for making a living, which leads many men to migrate elsewhere in search of employment. Drawing on 6 months of fieldwork in 2 villages in different irrigation systems, this article argues that although formal water rights and power are vested in men, this does not mean that women lack agency, nor is it necessarily a reflection of wider gender inequities. Understanding the power and equity implications of formal distributions of rights and powers among men and women requires an analysis that links formal rights to actual irrigation and farming practices and places them in broader historical and livelihood contexts.

A New Rural Social Contract for the Maghreb? The Political Economy of Access to Water, Land and Rural Development

The social contract, as the basis of the relations between rulers and populations in the Maghreb region, is highly contested especially since 2011. However, the rural dimension of this phenomenon remains yet under researched. Building on related emerging critical studies, this paper coins the term of a ‘rural social contract’ and analyses what it embodies. It highlights how the unequal ownership and use of water and land resources contribute to the marginalization of the large majority of rural populations and to their growing discontent. The article argues that three trends currently contribute to the re-articulation of the social contract in rural areas. Firstly, overexploitation and climate change lead to a severe degradation of water and land resources which challenges the established patterns of use and redistribution of these resources. Secondly, agricultural policies focusing on export production and on large entrepreneurs lead to further marginalization of small farmers. Thirdly, the emergence of new rural actors challenge the established social relationships. On the basis of this analysis, the article frames the major challenges, dynamics and characteristic of a newly emerging rural social contract in the Maghreb.