Select Ethnographies on Water in India: a Review (original) (raw)
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Review Essay: Select Ethnographies on Water in India: a Review
2019
Water, an essential resource for survival, has become a subject of central attention in the contemporary debates on sustainability. Research on water from various disciplinary perspectives suggests that the issue is not about quantity but about management of the water resources. Social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, have contributed a lot to our understanding of water as a resource, grounded in the empirical method. This paper is a review of selected ethnographic studies from different disciplinary perspectives, viz. anthropology, geography, urban studies and cultural politics on water. Based on ethnographic studies of water in both urban and rural India, the authors argue for increased attention of Indian scholarship to 'infrastructures' like water from an ethnographic perspective.
Too Much and Too Little: Understanding the Water Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent
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An environmental ethic of care, coupled with scientific and religious under- standing, sheds light on the urgent concern of the crisis of water depletion in the Indian subcontinent. Dam and reservoir projects impound India’s great rivers to the detriment of rural areas and villages, producing scarcity in primarily agricultural regions. The water crisis in India parallels what is happening around the world as humanity contends with contaminated or depleted water supplies. What is happening in rural communities in India happens around the globe in the processes of globalization and privatization of water. With the pressing water crisis in mind, the goal of this article is to present a philosophical method of analysis that points to a way to overcome the water crisis. Philosophy of care suggests a solution to the water crisis in questioning privatization and restor- ing respect for the rivers of India.
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Water Works in India. by Roopali Phadke. Pp 80-97.
India's water problems have long been portrayed by the international media as crises of poverty, desperation and corruption. Drawing an analogy to the "peak oil" discourse, "peak water" adherents express an impending dystopia through images of overpumped aquifers in the world's breadbasket regions, excessive irrigation that is rapidly depleting rivers and deltas, neglected pollutants that are poisoning return water flows. This focus on global water scarcities overshadows the real gains in water governance that have been achieved at local and regional scales. This is particularly true in India, where over the last three decades watershed development has significantly matured as a concept, method and technology for improving livelihoods. This article describes a set of empirical cases from the region of Maharashtra that define and demonstrate how watershed development is working to meet vital ecological and socio-economic goals. The focus is on how one particular social movement is tackling the most vexing issues faced by watershed planners: equity and landlessness. Les problèmes d'eau indiens ont longtemps été décrit par les médias internationaux comme une crise de la pauvreté, le désespoir ou la corruption. Faisant une analogie avec le discours «pic pétrolier», les croyants de «l'eau pic» exprimer une dystopie imminente à travers des images d'aquifères surexploités dans les régions les plus productives du monde, l'irrigation excessive qui épuise les fleuves et les deltas rapidement, et les polluants qui empoisonnent des écoulements d'eau. Cet accent éclipse les gains réels en matière de gouvernance de l'eau qui ont été obtenus à des échelles locales et régionales. Cela est particulièrement vrai en Inde, où l'aménagement des bassins versants a considérablement mûri en tant que concept, la méthode et la technologie pour améliorer les moyens de subsistance au fil des trois dernières décennies. Cet article décrit un ensemble de cas empiriques de la région de Maharashtra qui définissent et démontrer comment le développement des bassins versants répondre aux objectifs vitaux écologiques et socio-économique. L'accent est mis sur la manière dont un mouvement social aborde les questions les plus délicates rencontrées par les planificateurs des bassins versants: les inégalités et le manque de terres. Los problemas del agua en India se han representado en los medios de comunicación internacionales como crisis de pobreza, desesperación y corrupción. Estableciendo una analogía con el discurso del “petróleo pico”, los seguidores del “agua pico” articulan una inminente distopía mediante imágenes de acuíferos sobreexplotados en zonas del mundo productoras de grano, irrigación excesiva que está acabando rápidamente con ríos y deltas o contaminantes olvidados que están envenenando el agua que vuelve a los ríos tras la irrigación. Este énfasis en la escasez global de agua eclipsa las mejoras reales en gobernabilidad del agua que se han conseguido a nivel local y regional. Esto es particularmente cierto para India, donde en las últimas tres décadas la gestión del agua se ha desarrollado significativamente como concepto, método y tecnología para mejorar la calidad de vida. Este artículo describe una serie de casos empíricos de la región de Maharashtra, los cuales definen y demuestran cómo la gestión del agua logra alcanzar objetivos vitales ecológicos y socioeconómicos. El énfasis se sitúa en cómo un movimiento social en especial está enfrentándose a los asuntos más complicados con que se enfrentan quienes planifican lo recursos acuáticos: la equidad y el problema de carencia de tierra.
Water management traditions in rural India: Valuing the unvalued
2004
Achieving effective and efficient management of water as the key to human survival and development has emerged as an urgent global concern. The realization of the limited availability of water in space and time under conditions of ever-increasing pressures has caused designing of "modern" water management initiatives that are globally manufactured but implementable in local communities, India being no exception. It is perhaps universally assumed that water management, as an integrated system based upon local knowledge & practices, is either "non-existent" or "irrational", "narrowly pragmatic" and "in the process of disappearance". If water is a basic resource necessary for sustaining all human activities, its provision in the desired quantity and quality and at the right time and place through a workable local water management system must be regarded as an omnipresent phenomenon. How is water management traditionally organized in rural Indian localities so that the community"s needs are met through generations? What implications do such systems based in local situated knowledge & practices hold for the global water management context? The paper seeks answers to these questions through an ethnographic study in rural India. It concludes that traditional water management system in rural Indian localities is pragmatic, rational and functional even in contemporary times. As found in central and central-eastern parts of the country, the system may be resolved into human and non-human components, the latter further lying within two different analytical domains, namely, the "ideational" and the "operational". Traditional knowledge informs each of these domains that is translated as practice in day-today life. The paper argues that the study of such systems is important not only for the sake of enhancing the understanding of traditional resource management systems as situated knowledge systems and situated action locales, but also for appreciating their practical value in designing of more workable, socio-culturally viable, community-based solutions to the resource management problems encountered in recent times.
Water scarcity is a very critical issue in the context of sustainability and global environmental change. However, the notion of scarcity also has its local roots that are constructed by diverse actors with specific values, knowledge and interests. This paper explores the socially constructed nature of water scarcity among diverse social actors along the river basin of Bharathapuzha in Kerala. It also examines the diverse contextual factors that have affected the traditional land and water management practices in the river basin. This paper is based on qualitative research carried out among two villages along the river basin. The findings of this paper show that the river basin is extremely prone to droughtlike situations and multiple forms of water scarcity surfaces in the discourses and discursive practices of social actors associated with the socio-ecological system. Further, these discursive practices are guided by the instrumental rationality of technological modernisation and progress, which has not only disrupted the traditional water management systems in the region, but also have completely neglected the ecosystem linkages and carrying capacities of vulnerable resource systems. The state-induced and expert-driven images of modernity such as dams, concrete check dams and major irrigation projects have replaced the traditional imagery of the river as a vibrant and ever-flowing life source. Water scarcity and other related forms of scarcity mediate these transitions. These processes have long-term implications on the sustainability of the river itself.