Margreet Zwarteveen

Defining, researching and struggling for water justice: some conceptual building blocks for research and action

This article provides a framework for understanding water problems as problems of justice. Drawing on wider (environmental) justice approaches, informed by interdisciplinary ontologies that define water as simultaneously natural (material) and social, and based on an explicit acceptance of water problems as always contested, the article posits that water justice is embedded and specific to historical and socio-cultural contexts. Water justice includes but transcends questions of distribution to include those of cultural recognition and political participation, and is intimately linked to the integrity of ecosystems. Justice requires the creative building of bridges and alliances across differences.

The water question in feminism: water control and gender inequities in a neo-liberal era

The current neo-liberal moment in water policy appears to offer possibilities for realizing feminist ambitions. Several feminist scholars see the individualization and privatization of resource rights as offering possibilities for confronting gender inequalities rooted in, and reproduced by, historic and structural male favoured access to productive resources such as land and water. But we seriously doubt a progressive feminist potential of neo-liberal reforms in the water sector. We focus on water used for agricultural purposes, because neo-liberal water proposals are premised on taking water out of agriculture to uses with higher marginal economic returns. A first set of doubts involves water as a specific resource, largely because of its propensity to flow. Rights to water are less fixed and more prone to be contested at various levels and in different socio-legal domains than rights to other natural resources. The second set stems from our disagreement with the ideological underpinnings of the neo-liberal project. It reflects our concern about how water reforms articulate with wider political-economic structures and historical dynamics characterized by new ways of capitalist expansion. Furthermore, mainstream neo-liberal water policy language and concepts tend to hide precisely those issues that, from a critical feminist perspective, need to be questioned. Feminist reflections about tenure insecurity and social inequities in relation to water clash with the terms of a neo-liberal framework that invisibilizes, naturalizes and objectifies the politics and powers involved in water re-allocation. A feminist response calls for challenging the individualization, marketization and consumer/client focus of the neo-liberal paradigm.

Re-politicising water governance: exploring water re-allocations in terms of justice

Contemporary socio-economic transformations in South Asia are creating increasingly serious water problems (scarcity, flooding, pollution) and conflicts. Conflicts over water distribution, water-derived benefits, and risks often play out along axes of social differentiation like caste, wealth, and gender. Those with least power, rights, and voice suffer lack of access, exclusion, dispossession, and further marginalisation, resulting in livelihood insecurity or increased vulnerability to risks. In this paper we propose analysing these problems as problems of justice – problems of distribution, recognition, and political participation. Drawing on wider environmental justice approaches, a specific water justice focus needs to include both the specific characteristics of water as a resource and the access, rights, and equity dimensions of its control. We argue that recognising water problems as problems of justice requires a re-politicisation of water, as mainstream approaches to water resources, water governance, and legislation tend to normalise or naturalise their – basically political – distributional assumptions and implications. An interdisciplinary approach that sees water as simultaneously natural (material) and social is important here. We illustrate these conceptual and theoretical suggestions with evidence from India.

Performing the success of an innovation: the case of smallholder drip irrigation in Burkina Faso

Over the last 15 years, smallholder drip irrigation has gained almost unanimous popularity as an effective tool to achieve the combined goals of sustainable water use, food security and poverty alleviation in the developing world. Based on a study in Sub-Saharan Africa, this article shows that this popularity does not stem from what the technology does in farmers’ fields, but is the result of the concerted efforts of a number of key spokespersons to align it with the projects and interests of a variety of actors, including development agents, researchers, NGO staff and pilot farmers.

Santa Cruz Declaration on the Global Water Crisis

At least one billion people around the world struggle with insufficient access to water. However, the global water crisis is not, as some suggest, primarily driven by water scarcity. Although limited water supply and inadequate institutions are indeed part of the problem, we assert that the global water crisis is fundamentally one of injustice and inequality. This declaration expresses our understanding of water injustice and how it can be addressed.

Can water professionals meet gender goals? A case study of the Department of Irrigation in Nepal

This article argues that there are contradictions between gender goals and policies and the aspirations of irrigation professionals, which are embedded in the incentive structure of the bureaucracy. In addition, the dominant professional culture of irrigation engineers is strongly masculine, linking professional performance to masculinity. The prevailing incentives and culture of the irrigation bureaucracy stand in the way of achieving any real progress in terms of gender goals. This article is based on evidence collected through an in-depth study of the irrigation bureaucracy in Nepal between 2001 and 2007.

Property, legal pluralism, and water rights: the critical analysis of water governance and the politics of recognizing “local” rights

In this paper we assess the impact of Franz von Benda-Beckmanns work in the field of water rights. We argue that his contributions to understanding water, a field dominated by engineers and economists, cannot be overestimated. Over the years, Franzs nuanced and empathic anthropological attitude, his suspicion of universals, and his critical stance towards mainstream development thinking have developed into a rich conceptual repertoire for understanding how norms, rules, and laws co-shape water flows to produce highly uneven waterscapes. His ideas have been particularly influential in re-thinking water as property, opening up for investigation the relation between “the legal” and human behaviour through a layered conceptualization of property. There is now increasing recognition of the idea that water use situations are often governed by a plurality of rules, norms, and laws that come from different sources. The impact of such insights on engineering-dominated water studies is growing. Indeed, law and notions of legal pluralism are increasingly mobilized for the purpose of better regulation of water. The instrumental use of legal pluralism may, however, result in a watering down of descriptive-analytical concepts. These concepts may thus lose their analytical power and become linked to the very forms of identity-based politics, neoliberal ideologies, and modernist-legalist interventions that critical legal pluralism studies intend to challenge.

Smallholder Drip Irrigation in Burkina Faso: The Role of Development Brokers

Abstract Smallholder drip irrigation is widely held as a promising technology for water saving, poverty reduction and food security, despite a dearth of evidence of benefits to farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In this article, we document three development programmes promoting drip irrigation in Burkina Faso. Using actor network theory and insights from critical development studies, we show that development brokers play a key role in aligning interests, shaping activities and interpreting project outcomes. They are accountable towards each other rather than to farmers. This means that success is interpreted through development agencies lenses and with the intention of continuing involvement in future projects. Small farmers’ interests and uptake of the technology are of secondary importance.

Informal privatisation of community taps: issues of access and equity

On the basis of a detailed case study this paper questions the equity of centralised piped drinking water supply systems installed by the government of Nepal in rural areas. The study shows how processes of socio-technical interaction and change alter the physical water supply infrastructure of the installed public water supply system, simultaneously altering patterns of access to taps and water. The analysis suggests that this happens through a process of “informal privatisation”, with community taps becoming appropriated by individuals over time, cutting off some families from their access to community tap water while reinforcing the water security of others. This process is deeply shaped by prevailing relations of power and cultural difference along axes of gender, caste and wealth.

Farmers’ Logics in Engaging With Projects Promoting Drip Irrigation Kits in Burkina Faso

ABSTRACT Development agencies enthusiastically promote micro-drip irrigation as an affordable water and labor-saving device, yet most farmers stop using it as soon as development projects end. This article analyzes why farmers engage in projects promoting drip irrigation kits, even though they appear not to be interested in their water and labor-saving attributes. We combine practice-based theories of innovation with insights from the anthropology of development to explain that in development project arenas, micro-drip kits have different meanings for farmers than for the actors promoting the technology. Accepting the technology is just one element of more encompassing strategic efforts by farmers to obtain benefits from development projects. Hence, in the arena of the development project and for farmers, micro-drip kits are defined by the side benefits that accompany their introduction, such as motorized pumps, free inputs, the promise of credit, or the prospect of acquiring social prestige and forging new alliances.