This book addresses a critical need for a sustained geographical
and anthropological inquiry into the social issues of water
governance. It traces local uses, beliefs and rituals associated
with water in East Timor and draws on detailed ethnographic
research to explore the degree to which these diverse practices and
beliefs influence water use and management in the complex karst
environment of the Baucau district in the country s north east.
Here water has critical symbolic and material connective capacities
embedding it as the critical element connecting people, spirit
beings, place and space. Underground water is as well the critical
organizer of local agro-resource relations which despite a century
of colonial disruption exhibit and maintain both resilience and
contemporary salience. Yet questions arise about what happens to
this agroecosystem, indeed the entire sociocultural system, in the
context of aggressive economic modernization or increasing climate
variability.
The book identifies effective conceptual and methodological
tools for advancing community engagement in agricultural, water
resource and sanitation program implementation and provides a
contextualised case study from which to draw insights and assist in
achieving greater understandings and sustainability elsewhere.
Informed and complemented by case studies drawn from rural and
urban contexts in south-east Asia (Indonesia, Philippines,
Cambodia), the Andean region of South America (Peru, Ecuador,
Chile) and Africa (Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa), it frames the
study in a comparative context and draws out the relevance and
limitations of approaches taken elsewhere. It examines the
difficulties facing local communities in having their rights
recognised and their efforts to maintain and assert control of
their waterscapes in the face of rapidly changing water governance
institutions.
Rendering visible the ritual ecological practices, contexts and
scales through which use, negotiation over and sharing of water
occurs at the local level, this book shows the complex functioning
and social, cultural, economic and environmental interdependencies
of hydrological societies. This important ethnographic study in the
field of political and spiritual ecology contributes to a better
understanding of the ways in which alternate practices can lead to
more integrated and sustainable water management practices.
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