Margreet Zwarteveen

This research has its roots in de evidence that was produced in the eighties on the detrimental impact of irrigation projects on gender equality. Why it is that irrigation development negatively affects gender equality? Out of an explicit feminist commitment, the linkages between gender (in-equality and irrigation development are explored from two different angles. The first angle consists of a critical discussion of current theories that underlie irrigation planning and policies. In many ways, these theories make it difficult to properly recognize and accommodate gender relations. At the same time they are based on an incomplete and often inadequate understanding of these relations. The second angle consists of a number of case studies undertaken in different countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka, Niger, Burkina Faso) to empirically explore how and where gender relations affect and are affected by irrigation management policies and practices.

Feminists' Attempts to Engage Irrigation Engineers

Wedlock Or Deadlock?

Rutgerd Boelens

Tom Perreault

Jeroen Vos

An overview of critical conceptual approaches to water justice, illustrated with global historic and contemporary case studies of socio-environmental struggles.

Water Justice

Jean-Philippe Venot

Marcel Kuper

Initially associated with hi-tech irrigated agriculture, drip irrigation is now being used by a much wider range of farmers in emerging and developing countries. This book documents the enthusiasm, spread and use of drip irrigation systems by smallholders but also some disappointments and disillusion faced in the global South. It explores and explains under which conditions it works, for whom and with what effects. The book deals with drip irrigation 'behind the scenes', showcasing what largely remain 'untold stories'. Most research on drip irrigation use plot-level studies to demonstrate the technology’s ability to save water or improve efficiencies and use a narrow and rather prescriptive engineering or economic language. They tend to be grounded in a firm belief in the technology and focus on the identification of ways to improve or better realize its potential. The technology also figures prominently in poverty alleviation or agricultural modernization narratives, figuring as a tool to help smallholders become more innovative, entrepreneurial and business minded. Instead of focusing on its potential, this book looks at drip irrigation-in-use, making sense of what it does from the perspectives of the farmers who use it, and of the development workers and agencies, policymakers, private companies, local craftsmen, engineers, extension agents or researchers who engage with it for a diversity of reasons and to realize a multiplicity of objectives. While anchored in a sound engineering understanding of the design and operating principles of the technology, the book extends the analysis beyond engineering and hydraulics to understand drip irrigation as a sociotechnical phenomenon that not only changes the way water is supplied to crops but also transforms agricultural farming systems and even how society is organized. The book provides field evidence from a diversity of interdisciplinary case studies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America, and South Asia, thus revealing some of the untold stories of drip irrigation.

Untold Stories of Efficiency, Innovation and Development

Drip Irrigation for Agriculture

Sara Ahmed

Suman Rimal Gautam

Across the South Asian region, water determines livelihoods and in some cases even survival. However, water also creates exclusions. Access to water, and its social organisation, are intimately tied up with power relations. This book provides an overview of gender, equity and water issues relevant to South Asia. The essays empirically illustrate and theoretically argue how gender intersects with other axes of social difference such as class, caste, ethnicity, age and religion to shape water access, use and management practices. Divided into six thematic sections, each of which starts with an introduction of relevant concepts, debates and theories, the book looks at laws and rights; policies; technologies and intervention strategies. In all, the book clearly shows how understanding and changing the use, distribution and management of water is conditional upon understanding and accommodating gender relations. Published by Zubaan.

Margreet Zwarteveen

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