Anthropology paper

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Water Sustainability: Anthropological Approaches and Prospects Ben Orlove1 and Steven C. Caton2 1 School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027; email: [email protected] 2 Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010. 39:401–15

First published online as a Review in Advance on June 21, 2010

The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at anthro.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.105045

Copyright c© 2010 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

0084-6570/10/1021-0401$20.00

Key Words

value, equity, governance, politics, regimes, integrated water resource management

Abstract

Water has become an urgent theme in anthropology as the worldwide need to provide adequate supplies of clean water to all people becomes more challenging. Anthropologists contribute by seeing water not only as a resource, but also as a substance that connects many realms of social life. They trace the different forms of valuing water, examine the often unequal distribution of water, explore the rules and institutions that govern water use and shape water politics, and study the multiple, often conflicting knowledge systems through which actors understand water. They offer ethnographic insights into key water sites—watersheds, wa- ter regimes, and waterscapes—found in all settings, though with widely varying characteristics. Anthropologists provide a critical examination of a concept called integrated water resource management (IWRM), which has become hegemonic in the global discourse of sustainable development.

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Total social fact: Marcel Mauss’s idea to talk about social phenomena that cut across virtually all domains of society

Connectivity: the articulation of the multiple social domains in which water is used

INTRODUCTION

We propose to study water as a “total social fact” (Mauss 1990). Although Mauss had presta- tions or “service exchanges” principally in mind when he spoke of the total social fact, he did not limit this kind of fact to them. It suffices that

in these ‘total’ social phenomena, as we pro- pose calling them, all kinds of institutions are given expression at one and the same time— religious, juridical, and moral, which relate to both politics and the family; likewise economic ones, which suppose special forms of produc- tion and consumption, or rather, of perform- ing total services and distribution. This is not to take into account the aesthetic phenomena to which these facts lead, and the contours of the phenomena that these institutions mani- fest. (p. 3)

In the conclusion of the essay, Mauss explains that in his approach “[one] has the advantage of . . . seeing the social ‘things’ themselves, in concrete form and as they are” (p. 80).

Although we have the tendency to reduce water to a biological fact when thinking about its nature, it is integral, even essential, to many if not most domains or institutions of society— economic, political, religious, leisure, etc., as Strang (2004, p. 5) recognizes in her discussion of the “essentiality” of water. In this way, water is social and total in precisely the encompassing sense that Mauss had in mind. At the same time, water as a social fact takes concrete forms, even though physically and in the abstract we con- ceive of it as a continuous and homogeneous substance. When washing our bodies, we think of personal hygiene, and yet it matters to us whether water is delivered by a spigot into a bath or by a shower head into a stall whether the spray is strong or weak, sharp or gentle; and let us not even approach the cultural nuances of water temperature and softness. In these con- crete forms, water is totalistically connected to the domain of public health and to popular no- tions of water as an invigorating as well as a

sensually pleasurable substance, as a morning social ritual, and as a political-economic aes- thetic (as seen in accessories of showerheads, metal fixtures, shower stalls, bathroom tiles, mirrors, etc.). The choices and meanings are no less complex for a Ugandan farmer, who squats or sits on a low bench, first transferring water (usually, but not always, heated over an open wood fire) from a jerrycan or pot into a plastic basin, and then dipping out the tepid or warm or hot water (using either a plastic cup with a handle or the two hands pressed together to form a kind of scoop) and splashing it over the back and the rest of the body. The farmer may or may not use soap or washing powder; the spilled water may be absorbed by an earthen floor or mopped off a concrete floor.

Mauss was interested in the form or struc- ture that prestations take (the acts of giving, receiving, and countergiving), which the con- creteness of water does not usually have, but it might be said to have a system, although again perhaps not quite as Levi-Strauss had en- visioned in his logico-mathematical model of kinship (Lévi-Strauss 1949). Water connects domains of life such that the water used in one will affect the water used in others, and if the notion of system suggests more integration of these domains than is warranted, perhaps “con- nectivity” might be a better term for what we seek to define. That is, water connects differ- ent domains of social life to each other in ways that are not haphazard or accidental because they depend on each other. Water’s connec- tivity is mediated by levels of social organiza- tional complexity (Hannerz 1992). Getting wa- ter from something as apparently simple as a spigot is, in fact, no simple matter because it de- pends on a physical infrastructure that is both extensive and complex, not to mention a bu- reaucracy ranging from the most local unit (a water-user association or a village water works utility, for example) to national authorities and international governance structures such as the World Bank. Water’s management and control also entail legal systems, oversight agencies, and courts of law to regulate water use and adjudi- cate violations or conflicts.

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Less apparent in Mauss’s definition, but which we insist is critical to understanding wa- ter as a “a total social fact,” is what we call the materiality of water. Its molecular properties give it many distinctive characteristics (trans- parency; incompressibility; chemical neutrality; odorlessness and tastelessness; an ability to ex- ist as a gas, a liquid, and a solid at the tem- peratures and pressures found on the surface of our planet; an ability to dissolve many sub- stances and to be absorbed by many substances). These properties combine into two key mate- rial attributes. Because a given volume of wa- ter is fixed by incompressibility but threatened with losses through evaporation, leakage, and absorption by soil, the quantity of water is a crucial matter. And because water can receive so many chemical and biological contaminants, only some of which are readily evident to the human senses of sight, smell, and taste, the quality of water is also a crucial matter. This article, concerned as it is with sustainability, addresses these two aspects, which might seem to be simple universal attributes but which, as we suggest, reflect the highly specific material- ity of water in its interactions with human bod- ies and human-made structures (Hamlin 1990, Orlove 1998, Orlove & Caton 2009). To be sure, quantity and quality are always experi- enced as social constructions—a recent study (Wilk 2006) traces historical shifts in meanings of potable water in several countries, and an- other shows the changing concerns over pol- lution (Beamish 2000)—but they are not only that. Thus, Americans feel the need for a min- imum amount of water to sustain their general sense of well-being. These needs are couched in a naturalizing discourse of bodily or soci- etal needs; however, as water becomes scarce in California’s Central Valley or in the aquifers under the High Plains, material pressures are put on these constructions, forcing people to begin questioning them and in time perhaps to adopt new water-use practices. The point, however, is not to determine where social con- structions end and materialities begin, but to see how complexly they are intertwined. The point may be even more subtle in the case of water

Materiality (also elementality and essentiality): the physical attributes of water that affect its relation to the human body and environment and that shape its use

Social construction: the meanings and values people give to things so that they can be discussed and incorporated into action

Waterworld: the totality of connections (see connectivity) that water may have in a given society

quality, as illustrated in an ethnographic case study by Alley (2002); the water of the Ganges is known to be polluted, but Hindus perform their ablutions in it because of their belief in the restorative powers of Mother Ganga. Some- times cultural beliefs trump material realities in stunning ways. And as Alley also shows, the point is not to dispel supposedly misguided cul- tural beliefs in favor of scientific truth (which is contested in any case) but to see that these are always complexly interconnected, thereby af- fecting how water policy can be implemented.

A widespread tendency exists among anthro- pologists to locate water’s primary locus in the domain of agriculture and to extrapolate widely from this foundation. After all, one of the most influential works in Marxist social science is Wittfogel’s (1957) hydrological theory of the rise of the state. Indeed, a focus on the pro- visioning of water in the agricultural sphere marks some of the most interesting work done in archaeology (Scarborough 2003) as well as in social anthropology (Fleuret 1985; Geertz 1972; Gelles 2000; Glick 1970; Guillet 1998; Ilahiane 1996, 2001; Lansing 1991; Rodrı́guez 2006; Varisco 1983; Wilkonson 1977). Surely one of the most brilliant ethnographic studies of water provisioning in the agricultural sphere is the analysis of the complex intertwining of Balinese religious ritual and irrigation practices by J. Stephen Lansing (1991). Yet, it is a fact of water’s totality that it is extracted from and used in many other spheres besides agriculture, and for many more purposes than irrigation. It cir- culates through practically all domains of social life, rural as well as urban (Swyngedow 2004, Swyngedow et al. 2002), is handled differently by men and women (Bennet 1995, Bennet et al. 2005, Cleaver & Elson 1995, Elmendorf 1981, Harris 2005, Tortajada 2003), and is important in economic sectors other than agriculture, such as industry, fishing, tourism, and sports.

To name the totality of connections that wa- ter may have in any given society, we adopt Hastrup’s term “waterworld” (2009a). (We also share Hastrup’s sense that many water- worlds, pressed by climate change, growing de- mand, and social inequality, are in crisis.) This

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connectivity means that water can mark the boundaries of groups and communities, de- fined by shared involvement with water (Orlove 1993). Raffles (2002) offers a particularly rich ethnography of a waterworld, showing how a major waterway has changed over time and has also been imagined as a politically fraught space. A counterexample is Mitchell’s widely read book (2002) on colonialism, modernity, and power in Egypt; despite its attention to forms of control of persons, property, and knowledge, this book pays scant attention to the Nile and to the role of water management and regulation in the shifts in political order.

FIVE CENTRAL THEMES IN WATERWORLDS

To sum up the discussion so far, we have re- marked on two of the central features of water, its connectivity and its materiality, that ought to be of paramount concern to anthropolo- gists. The totality of connections in any spe- cific case comprises what we call a waterworld. We now suggest that any anthropological anal- ysis of a waterworld ought to be concerned with five principal themes: value, equity, gov- ernance, politics, and knowledge.

Value: Natural Resources and Human Rights

How do nature (or environment) and culture (or society) intersect in waterworlds? One way to answer that question is to say that water is valued on the one hand as a resource for human well-being and productive activity, and hence is part of economic systems, and on the other hand as a right that has meaning from its connections to our place as conscious social beings who live in a natural and cultural world, and hence is part of political systems. Moreover, the value of water can be negative as well as positive because of hazards such as flood and erosion, the risks of waterborne diseases, and lesser threats such as rot. And the rights to water are associated with obligations to use water prudently and to support water systems.

Anthropologists are particularly well-suited to consider the ways that water, a substance with specific properties, is understood and used dif- ferently in a variety of social settings (Bachelard 1942, Hamlin 1990). The connectivity of water associates it with survival, sanitation, produc- tion, pleasure, and other aspects of social life. In Levi-Strauss’s term, it is “good to think” (Renne 1991, Shapiro 1995, Sheridan 2002). And water can be also termed “good to experi- ence” (Anderson & Tabb 2002, Orlove 1997). Water is a substance that richly engages the senses (touch, sight, hearing, and taste) as medi- ated through social products and practices that have specific cultural value, as Limbert (2001) has shown in her beautifully rendered ethnog- raphy of the “senses of water” in an Omani town.

Equity: Access and Distribution

How is this valued substance to be shared among the members of a society or the inhab- itants of the world? This matter is tied to two other linked issues: of justice, on the one hand, and of political economy, on the other. A crucial concern is the equity of access to safe drinking water for people of all classes, of all ethnic and racial groups, of all ages, and of both genders. The competition among uses and economic sectors is also crucial (Donahue & Johnston 1997). Political scientists have studied the com- plex factors and strategic interests that shape water distribution within and between nations (Fischer 2006), as well as the consequences of treating water as a commodity and allowing the market to allocate it in the name of efficiency (Whiteley et al. 2008). Peters (1994) offers a telling account of the factors that have led to a grossly unequal distribution of water in colonial and postcolonial Botswana.

Governance: Organization and Rules

How far do institutional economics and economic sociology lead us in understanding the organizations that manage and distribute water? This question is particularly complex for the case of water, with its multiple scales

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that link storage facilities with dispersed users. The uneven availability of water worldwide promotes the development of large-scale water- distribution systems. Considerable capital and labor must be invested to build and maintain water facilities. Indeed, recent discussions of common-property resources draw heavily from examples of irrigation works, which have been a locus both of participatory governance (Ostrom 1990) and of state parasitism (Wittfogel 1957). This study of water orga- nization is a particularly promising site for the integration of economic, sociological, and anthropological perspectives on water, as Geertz (1972) noted in his contrast of irrigation in Indonesia and Morocco and as Mosse (1997) describes in his account of the patterning of irrigation institutions in semiarid zones in India. These questions of governance can be particularly important at times of crisis and scarcity, and the uncertainty surrounding the resilience of water supply may be as much a question of governance as it is a question of the physical availability of water ( Johnston 2003, Roth et al. 2005, Wagner 2009).

Politics: Discourse and Conflict

How do the three previous questions lead us to understand the struggles to control water in civil society and the public sphere? As Ernst (2003) shows in his study of political conflicts over regulation of Chesapeake Bay, three categories or concepts seem to dominate the analytical talk about water sustainability: conservation, justice, and governance. The term governance is useful, but its association with the notion of management may presume the agreement of all parties on the goals that they share and on the values that they place on water: The debates and conflicts over these goals and values lead us to the sphere of politics. With its propensity to flow, and with its ready partibility, water is almost without exception shared among people and among localities and is therefore linked to collectivities. The orga- nizations that manage water operate within a broader political and regulatory context. These

public contexts draw on a variety of forms of discourse, including property laws and human rights (Boelens & Doornbos 2001, Derman & Ferguson 2003). As Guillet (1998) indicates, water law is often a crucial site of contestation between earlier regional customary law and nationalist reform. The political contestations over the construction of dams and distribution of water show these interacting forces with particular clarity because they lead water to shift between different individuals and groups (McCully 2001, Scudder 2006, McCormick 2007). In a discussion of dam-building in colonial and neo-colonial Rhodesia and post- colonial Zimbabwe, Hughes (2006) shows that the striking visual transformation of the land- scape by water projects can become a subject of contestation as important as the actual dis- tribution of water for drinking and agriculture. Many anthropologists look to see how different groups insert themselves in the larger debates over water sustainability. This question leads researchers to examine the strategies of water sustainability discourse and to compare the framings that consider practical challenges with solutions and the framings that address broader relations among states, societies, and envi- ronments. The power of such representations can lead to massive mobilizations, whether in Bolivia, where municipalities privatized water supplies (McNeish 2006), or in Peru, where mines altered traditional systems for irrigation and potable water in rural areas (Li 2009b). To be sure, the question of discourse as it relates to the problem of water sustainability is not only one of politics. When faced with such scarcities in the past, Muslim societies have responded with rain prayers, an ethnographic example of which can be found in the analysis by Caton (2006) of a recent drought in Yemen that occasioned elaborate and quite intense mosque supplications for rain.

Knowledges: Local/Indigenous and Scientific Systems

Water management, whether ancient or mod- ern, depends on various kinds of knowledge.

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Watershed: an area of land through which water drains downhill to a lowest point; a possible management unit

Anthropology and other researchers have long studied the great diversity of irrigation prac- tices and the knowledge they entail. Needham (1971) documented the debates between Con- fucian and Taoist approaches to irrigation in Imperial China, and Carney (2001) showed how the rice plantations in coastal areas of the an- tebellum South depended not only on the la- bor of African slaves and their descendants but also on Africans’ specific knowledge of water management in humid lowland environments. Researchers in the Andes trace the com- plex conceptual systems that underlie water management in terraced agriculture in steep canyons (Gelles 2000, Trawick 2003). Water use in the household requires a kind of knowl- edge (often undervalued) that is different from what is required in the agricultural field, a matter of gender difference.

In contrast, anthropologists have conducted fewer studies of water scientists and their knowledge, although we can glimpse what such studies might look like when we read the ethnographies of Walley (2004) on conserva- tion experts in the development of a Tanzanian marine park, of Mehta (2001, 2005) on the con- struction of scarcity in India by water experts who have little grasp of local understandings and management, and especially of Helmreich (2009) on scientific narratives about ocean life and its beginnings (see also, Alatout 2007a,b; Li 2009a; Molle 2008, 2009; Nichter 1985; Orlove et al. 2010; Paolisso & Maloney 2000). These works can be classified within the history of sci- ence as well as within science and technology studies (Haraway 1989; Jasanoff 1995; Latour 1987, 2004; Latour & Woolgar 1986; Rabinow 1999; Shapin & Schaffer 1985). An example of anthropological research that links the study of science, the state, transnational institutions, and capital in Yemen appears in a later section of this review.

THREE SITES IN WATERWORLDS

Having reviewed general attributes of wa- ter and central themes in the study of water

sustainability, we now suggest that anthropo- logical analyses of waterworlds could produc- tively explore three specific sites: watersheds, water regimes, and waterscapes.

Watersheds

The term watershed (or water catchment) is widely used in scientific and policy contexts. The notion is simple and powerful: Because wa- ter flows downhill, each spot in the world can be assigned to a specific topographical basin. The water in each connected basin forms a water- shed, and each watershed can be managed and governed as a unit. The boundaries of a water- shed define a set of participants in this manage- ment, which includes natural scientists, govern- ment officials, members of local organizations, and ordinary citizens. In the past few decades, many watershed councils have been formed that are generally nonprofit participatory organizations that seek environmental quality and sustainable development. Other groups also promote more effective, equitable, and sus- tainable water management in a participatory way; the semiarid region of northeastern Brazil contains a number of examples (Broad et al. 2007, Lemos & Farios de Oliveira 2004, 2005). At a much larger scale, some watersheds, such as the Rhine River basin (Cioc 2002), extend across national boundaries and are managed by organizations whose members span nations.

Although we recognize that these councils and other groups have done much work that ad- dresses basic human needs and rights and that is broadly sustainable, we include a few words of caution about the term watershed. The concep- tual boundaries that humans use reflect cultural systems as well as the natural world, so it gives us as anthropologists pause to hear that an admin- istrative unit has an a priori material or natural existence. Other environmental and ecological categories, such as “forest” and “wetland,” in- clude both natural and social elements, given the complex nature of their characteristics and boundaries.

Watersheds may be simpler, more straight- forward units than forests and wetlands, but

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they are not entirely and unproblematically present in nature, as Strang shows in her account (2004) of the River Stour in England. First, watersheds vary enormously in scale, with a single watershed sometimes containing smaller subwatersheds, thus making the selec- tion of a particular scale in part a social choice. [The Colorado River Compact of 1922, which divided the Colorado River watershed into upper and lower basins, is a particularly clear example of such a choice (Reisner 1986).] Second, water moves in many ways. Ground- water, a crucial resource in many regions, is located in basins whose boundaries do not always correspond with watersheds so that residents of a given watershed may dig wells that directly affect the residents of another watershed. Deforestation in one watershed may reduce the amount of water vapor that is carried to another watershed downwind of it, creating water scarcity in this second water- shed. And the long human history of digging canals, leveling hills, and constructing dikes has also led water to move from one watershed to another. In this way, watersheds are not always the well-bounded management units that water managers and others often assume them to be.

Moreover, the notion of watershed tends to go hand-in-hand with the notion of stake- holder, understood as the residents, property holders, and public bodies within the bound- aries of the watershed, all of whom, presum- ably, seek to assure sustainable water use be- cause of their commitments to the watershed. The participatory democratic practices of wa- tershed councils and other groups rest on this notion of the responsible stakeholder. But such a focus on watersheds can rest on a naı̈ve and simplistic view of ecological citizenship. Stake- holders may engage in exclusionary practices while caring deeply about areas far from the ones in which they live [the idea of stakeholder can be linked to the archaic and widely re- jected principle of allowing only property own- ers to vote (Holston 2008)], and even among the stakeholders who gain seats at the discussion ta- ble, there are some who are more powerful than others (Broad et al. 2007, Roncoli et al. 2009).

Water regime: the aggregate of institutional rules and practices for managing water resources in a specific setting or watershed

Water Regimes

A second term, water regime, had a specific meaning within the field of hydrology referring to the pattern of water flow in a freshwater ecosystem, but it is increasingly used in polit- ical science and other fields. The term regime comes from the field of international relations, in which it is defined as “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision- making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area” (Krasner 1983, p. 2); it has helped explain how nations might cooperate. It can be similarly employed to examine cooperation and coordination among water users, who, like nations, could seem to be autonomous and to have conflicting interests. For example, the political scientist Stefan Lindemann (2008) traces the multiple factors that have led to successful management of water quality in the Rhine and Elbe water- sheds. But the term can also apply to specific national systems for regulating and managing water. Buller (1996) compares the French and British rules and institutions in the period of increasing integration into European frame- works. Galaz (2004) contrasts the water regimes in periods of public and corporate provision of water in Chile. He offers useful insights into the ways that the more recent water regime, consistent with other politics of privatization and market regulation of resources, weakens the rights of several groups of water users and reduces their ability to voice their concerns.

Anthropologists and other researchers have made important contributions to the study of water regime changes. Researchers have shown regime changes to be slow because physical infrastructure, reflecting earlier rules and institutions, remains in place, because water regulations overlap with other often en- trenched legal institutions, and because social understandings do not shift overnight. Bakker (2001) discusses opposition of the shift from a state- to a market-centered regime in Britain, where people, accustomed to being treated as citizens with rights to water, do not readily accept becoming consumers purchasing water

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Waterscape: the culturally meaningful, sensorially active places in which humans interact with water and with each other

Integrated water resource management (IWRM): a paradigm for the management of water resources that holistically treats the use of water in different sectors of society

as a commodity. Similarly, research on the indigenous fishing villages of Lake Titicaca in Peru examines conflicts between local and state regimes that govern water, manage economi- cally important aquatic plants, and grant rights to fish and to travel on the lake (Orlove 2002). Moreover, the notion of water regime can be associated with resilience because the rules and institutions that form part of specific water regimes shape response to external pressures such as climate change (Hastrup 2009b).

Waterscapes

A third term, waterscape, has been used since the mid-nineteenth century, by analogy with the word landscape, to describe works of art that depict scenery with bodies of water. In recent years, natural scientists have spoken of water- scape ecology as an aquatic specialization within landscape ecology, the discipline that stud- ies the interactions of contiguous ecosystems. This term gained attention after its appearance in an influential 1999 article by the geogra- pher Erik Swyngedouw, in which he consid- ers Spain in the period from 1890 to 1930. He draws on political economy approaches within geography to examine the production of wa- terscapes, emphasizing the ideological dimen- sions of place in the construction of dams and canals and the creation of new administrative units based on watersheds. Other works exam- ine the visual, experiential, and cultural aspects of waterscapes more extensively (Baviska 2007). Historian David Blackbourn’s (2006) account of the reshaping of rivers, marshes, lakes, and coasts in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany is a good example, paralleling similar efforts, although on a smaller scale, in Iceland (Pálsson & Huijbens 2009). These and other studies show that water is not merely an eco- nomically valuable resource that flows through spaces, but is also a culturally and experien- tially meaningful substance present in places. Although humans are never fully aquatic, they are often, perhaps always, hydrophilic, and the human sense of place often engages with water

as well as with land, as Strang shows in her anal- ysis of two very different Australian waterscapes (2009, p. 30) and Orlove documents in his ac- counts of the cultural importance of glaciers (2009a,b). A number of examples can be found in the anthropological literature; of particular importance are the accounts of irrigated rice landscapes in East Asia and Southeast Asia by Conklin (1980), Bray (1986), Lansing (1991), and others.

A number of studies consider all three sites: watersheds, water regimes, and water- scapes. Rodrı́guez’s (2006) ethnography of community-managed irrigation in northern New Mexico examines watersheds, showing that the social boundaries of parishes and the hydrological boundaries of basins are close but not always overlapping because local residents redirect water between drainages. The study considers water regimes by tracing conflicts be- tween customary practices and new state regu- lations. It also depicts the sensory and ritual as- pects of waterscapes and shows how the annual cleaning of canals and other ritual practices by local residents inscribe them in the landscape and in the multilayered ethnic history of their region.

INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) has become the new and, many would claim, the hegemonic paradigm for discussing, legitimizing, and implementing policies re- garding the management of the world’s water resources, subsuming within it the notion of sustainability of 1970s and 1980s development discourses. This notion was enshrined in the World Water Council’s World Water Vision (of the 2000 World Water Forum), which states that “to ensure the sustainability of water, we must view it holistically, balancing competing demands on it—domestic, agricultural, indus- trial (including energy), and environmental. Sustainable management of water resources requires systemic, integrated decision-making”

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(Cosgrove & Rijsberman 2000, p. 1). However, there is no fixed or universally agreed-upon definition of IWRM, nor does it lead to uniform policies in the international organi- zations that advocate it or the states that are, voluntarily or not, attempting to implement it in their water resources management, although certain basic themes or principles are evident even if their formulation remains necessarily abstract.

First, IWRM argues that solutions to water problems cannot be found in only one sector of society, such as agriculture, because water is used across society as a whole (a view that we share in our notion of water as a total social fact); therefore a broad, multisectoral approach must be taken, one that attempts to integrate what is happening with water in each sector into a holistic view of the overall situation, delimited in IWRM usually by country or national bound- ary, if the water resource, as is often the case for rivers, is shared. Second, although it has a healthy respect for normal and universal scien- tific knowledge in being able to help solve prob- lems, as one might expect of a paradigm that has emerged primarily from expert scientific net- works, IWRM at the same time evinces skepti- cism toward narrow technological solutions for overcoming the world’s water problems (a re- action, in part, to large-dam construction that came under heavy fire in the past two decades) by suggesting that these methods must be in- tegrated with other approaches—bureaucratic, legislative, economic, political, cultural, etc.— depending on the water problems in question.

A third theme is the stress on the manage- ment of water resources, implying that it is un- likely that significant new sources will be found (through desalination, the discovery of under- ground aquifers, massive transfers from water- sheds with low human populations, and other such methods) to alleviate water scarcity or con- tamination and that instead a finite and rapidly diminishing resource must be managed. The idea of management that is invoked is bureau- cratic, though at varying levels of complexity and integration. The basic or fundamental level

is usually seen to be the watershed (for reasons given above in our discussion of watersheds), but it is understood by water managers that this notion is not enough because the regulation of watersheds must be integrated to meet the to- tal demands on water by the various sectors and groups in society. To accomplish this integra- tion, one should enlist the help of regional and national levels of bureaucracy such as gover- norates or provinces as well as the nation-state.

In some versions of IWRM, a fourth theme is evident: educating water users in a society about its water problems and the steps to alleviate them, starting with the ordinary citizen whose water-conservation practices are constructed as a civic duty to the nation as well as a gift of water (to invoke Mauss once again) to future generations. In other versions of IWRM, a fifth theme, akin to what we have re- ferred to as value, also becomes important. For example, in the World Bank’s (2003) “Water Resources Sector Strategy,” water is explicitly valued as an economic good or commodity, leading to market solutions to managing the allocation of the world’s water; the resulting patterns of distribution are not necessarily op- timal for the world’s poor. But there is another valuation of water: as a basic human right to be equitably distributed among all peoples of the world according to need, which is not consonant with water’s market value (although in theory the two values are not necessarily incommensurable). This is the view taken, for example, in the 1997 Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. Still other views argue that three values—economic efficiency, social equity, and environmental sustainability—must be coordi- nated (Glob. Water Partnersh. 2000). The fact that all these valuations of water can be put forward in versions of IWRM demonstrates how contradictory the concept can be.

IWRM emerged as a discursive construct over the previous two decades, mainly in the work of international cadres of water experts (a broad array that includes, for example, scientists

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such as engineers or experts on water pollution, members of nongovernmental organizations concerned with equitable water distribution, international aid and development experts in- volved in water conservation and water-delivery projects, economists who study water as a com- modity, and members of international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization or the World Water Council concerned with water distribution) and as such is not the brain- child of any one organization. [For a history of the concept, see White (1998), and for a critical analysis, see Conca (2006).] IWRM is discussed in academic conferences and scientific journals and ratified in world treaty agreements. It is, in short, an example of the impact of expert knowl- edge on water policies in the world today, which we refer to above as a crucial component to an anthropological understanding of water.

IWRM has a vision of the waterworld with many parallels to our own, namely of water as a total social fact. It also includes all the themes (value, equity, governance, politics, and knowl- edge) that we hold to be essential to address the problems of water scarcity and degradation. For example, with its emphasis on management, IWRM is a regime—a global regime—for gov- erning the world’s water resources (just as with forests or the atmosphere, water is seen as a global and not just a national resource). Thus it falls under what we have termed the politics of water, although we hasten to add that IWRM’s explicit or stated political engagements do not go beyond two concerns: the supposed democratic participation in decision making regarding local-level water management, and equitable and affordable access to safe drinking water, especially for the world’s poor.

What IWRM does not venture into is the complex political question of how its principles will be struggled over and fought out in con- crete settings, a prime subject for anthropolog- ical inquiry. It is the politics that lies between conceptualization and practice that is crucial for understanding results, a politics of local ac- tors supposedly nearest to the source of water in the ground, a politics of national bureaucra-

cies established to manage water resources, and a politics of international donor agencies that are supposed to assist them (Mehta 2005, Oré 2005, Strang 2009). Moreover, IWRM’s narra- tive of normal science overlooks the disagree- ments among scientists over precise measure- ments and ignores the pressures to arrive at a broad consensus to conceal these rifts or dis- agreements. In contrast, Budds (2009) provides an ethnographic analysis of hydrological assess- ment in Chile that documents the intense po- litical struggles about the construction of mea- sures and interpretation of statistics, showing that such struggles frustrate planning and lead to skepticism over the authority of science.

As for the valuation of water, what is meant by a basic right or a commodity is hardly ques- tioned, as if these matters were settled long ago in philosophical and scientific discourses and need not be revisited in settings where these concepts are highly contested or do not hold sway. Anthropology has an important role to play in keeping these questions open rather than to consign the discipline to the study of how the “natives” value and use water locally. That said, the meanings and values placed on water by its users and the contestations over these among those same users (along class, gender, and ethnic lines, as well as urban versus rural di- vides) will fundamentally affect how water can be managed at the watershed in the first place, and here anthropology has an obvious and per- haps singular contribution to make to the un- derstanding of water’s valuation. This incom- plete treatment of the valuation of water reflects the tendency of IWRM to overlook waterscapes because it assumes that water is a resource that is used for specific ends, rather than a meaningful substance that is present in specific settings.

Let us illustrate an anthropological study of IWRM and these themes by examining the way it has been put into practice in a concrete situation: the Republic of Yemen. For a partial example of how anthropology might do an ethnography of IWRM, the reader should consider the article by Caton (2007), which is concerned with water sustainability in Yemen.

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Four sites were studied, all of which are closely connected to IWRM as a concept and as a practice: a 2005 scientific conference in Yemen on integrated watershed management, in which experts affirmed the primacy of IWRM practices; the Yemen Center for Water and the Environment, which teaches IWRM to Yemeni water engineers with the assistance of Dutch IWRM experts, an example of the transnational circulation of expert knowledge; an assessment of Yemen’s water-management policies and practices conducted by international donors (Dutch, German, and British) invested in Yemen’s five-year water plan, an example of the global governance of water resources; and finally, but not least, an examination of how expert knowledge gets transmuted into local knowledge at the watershed level by interna- tional development experts working in a water basin north of Yemen’s capital, San’a. Political contestations among experts were clearly visible in every site as were conflicts between national and international management agencies with their own legitimacies at stake. IWRM experts welcomed anthropological knowledge as help- ful for understanding local stakeholders at the watershed level but were unsurprisingly am- bivalent about the prospect of them becoming subjects of anthropological research as well.

HOW ANTHROPOLOGY CAN ENGAGE WITH WATER ISSUES What have we learned about the world’s water problems? There is no one solution, whether technological, economic, bureaucratic, or po- litical, that works globally. A combination of approaches must be applied in each case, de- pending on the particular materialities and con- nectivities in specific contexts.

However, waterworlds must be studied ethnographically, in all their components, in- cluding the often-neglected waterscapes as well as the more commonly examined watersheds and water regimes. The wide range of peo- ple, agencies, and processes involved in address- ing concrete water problems all require sus- tained scrutiny. Too often in the past, water consumers have been the sole concern, along with their national governments; this mindset is no longer sufficient when one realizes the pro- found presence and involvement of the transna- tional community of water experts. It is likely, therefore, that an anthropology of water can fruitfully link up with science and technology studies, even while continuing to connect with other specific, longer-established approaches, such as political ecology and material culture studies, and with the broad integrative styles of analysis that characterize the discipline.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We offer our thanks to the many people whose research, insight, and comments have helped us to develop our thinking on the subject of water sustainability. Sadly, space constraints do not allow us to name the numerous colleagues and associates who contributed to this review, so we will mention only the groups in which they participated: the Water Sustainability Field of the Dis- sertation Proposal Development Fellowship Program, supported by the Social Science Research Council; the two-year workshop, sponsored by the Department of Energy at the Center for Mid- dle East Studies at Harvard, on the politics of water sustainability; the cultural ecology seminar on water sustainability at the University of California, Davis; and Waterworlds, a Center for An- thropological Climate Research, funded by the European Research Council, at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.

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Stanford Univ. Press United Nations Comm. Sustain. Dev. 1997. Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World.

New York: United Nations Dept. Econ. Soc. Aff. Varisco DM. 1983. Sayl and ghayl: the ecology of water allocation in Yemen. Hum. Ecol. 11(4):365–83 Wagner J. 2009. Water governance today. Anthropol. News 51(1):5, 9 Walley CJ. 2004. Rough Waters: Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton Univ. Press White G. 1998. Reflections on the 50-year international search for integrated water management. Water Policy

1(1):21–27 Whiteley J, Ingram H, Perry RW, eds. 2008. Water, Place, and Equity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Wilk R. 2006. Bottled water: the pure commodity in the age of branding. J. Consum. Cult. 6(3):303–25 Wilkonson JC. 1977. Water and Tribal Settlement in South-East Arabia. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Wittfogel KA. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ.

Press World Bank. 2003. Water Resources Sector Strategy: Strategic Directions for World Bank Engagement. Washington,

DC: World Bank World Water Counc. 2000. World Water Vision. London: Earthscan

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Annual Review of Anthropology

Volume 39, 2010Contents

Prefatory Chapter

A Life of Research in Biological Anthropology Geoffrey A. Harrison � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Archaeology

Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological Perspectives Gary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

Exhibiting Archaeology: Archaeology and Museums Alex W. Barker � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 293

Defining Behavioral Modernity in the Context of Neandertal and Anatomically Modern Human Populations April Nowell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 437

The Southwest School of Landscape Archaeology Severin Fowles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 453

Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppes and Mongolia Bryan Hanks � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 469

Biological Anthropology

Miocene Hominids and the Origins of the African Apes and Humans David R. Begun � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �67

Consanguineous Marriage and Human Evolution A.H. Bittles and M.L. Black � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 193

Cooperative Breeding and its Significance to the Demographic Success of Humans Karen L. Kramer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 417

Linguistics and Communicative Practices

Enactments of Expertise E. Summerson Carr � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �17

vii

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The Semiotics of Brand Paul Manning � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �33

The Commodification of Language Monica Heller � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 101

Sensory Impairment Elizabeth Keating and R. Neill Hadder � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 115

The Audacity of Affect: Gender, Race, and History in Linguistic Accounts of Legitimacy and Belonging Bonnie McElhinny � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 309

Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology David W. Samuels, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and Thomas Porcello � � � � � � � � � � 329

Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media E. Gabriella Coleman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 487

International Anthropology and Regional Studies

Peopling of the Pacific: A Holistic Anthropological Perspective Patrick V. Kirch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 131

Anthropologies of the United States Jessica R. Cattelino � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 275

Sociocultural Anthropology

The Reorganization of the Sensory World Thomas Porcello, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and David W. Samuels � � � � � � � � � � � �51

The Anthropology of Secularism Fenella Cannell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �85

Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and Public Health James Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 149

Food and the Senses David E. Sutton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

The Anthropology of Credit and Debt Gustav Peebles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 225

Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of Autism Olga Solomon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241

Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconflict Moment Mary H. Moran � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 261

viii Contents

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Property and Persons: New Forms and Contests in the Era of Neoliberalism Eric Hirsch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 347

Education, Religion, and Anthropology in Africa Amy Stambach � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 361

The Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops Glenn Davis Stone � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 381

Water Sustainability: Anthropological Approaches and Prospects Ben Orlove and Steven C. Caton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 401

Theme I: Modalities of Capitalism

The Semiotics of Brand Paul Manning � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �33

The Commodification of Language Monica Heller � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 101

Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and Public Health James Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 149

Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological Perspectives Gary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

The Anthropology of Credit and Debt Gustav Peebles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 225

Property and Persons: New Forms and Contests in the Era of Neoliberalism Eric Hirsch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 347

The Anthropology of Genetically Modified Crops Glenn Davis Stone � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 381

Theme II: The Anthropology of the Senses

The Reorganization of the Sensory World Thomas Porcello, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa and David W. Samuels � � � � � � � � � � � �51

Sensory Impairment Elizabeth Keating and R. Neill Hadder � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 115

Food and the Senses David E. Sutton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of Autism Olga Solomon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241

Contents ix

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Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology David W. Samuels, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and Thomas Porcello � � � � � � � � � � 329

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 30–39 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 507

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volume 30–39 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 510

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Anthropology articles may be found at http://anthro.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

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Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application Volume 1 • Online January 2014 • http://statistics.annualreviews.org

Editor: Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon University Associate Editors: Nancy Reid, University of Toronto

Stephen M. Stigler, University of Chicago The Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application aims to inform statisticians and quantitative methodologists, as well as all scientists and users of statistics about major methodological advances and the computational tools that allow for their implementation. It will include developments in the field of statistics, including theoretical statistical underpinnings of new methodology, as well as developments in specific application domains such as biostatistics and bioinformatics, economics, machine learning, psychology, sociology, and aspects of the physical sciences.

Complimentary online access to the first volume will be available until January 2015. table of contents: • What Is Statistics? Stephen E. Fienberg • A Systematic Statistical Approach to Evaluating Evidence

from Observational Studies, David Madigan, Paul E. Stang, Jesse A. Berlin, Martijn Schuemie, J. Marc Overhage, Marc A. Suchard, Bill Dumouchel, Abraham G. Hartzema, Patrick B. Ryan

• The Role of Statistics in the Discovery of a Higgs Boson, David A. van Dyk

• Brain Imaging Analysis, F. DuBois Bowman • Statistics and Climate, Peter Guttorp • Climate Simulators and Climate Projections,

Jonathan Rougier, Michael Goldstein • Probabilistic Forecasting, Tilmann Gneiting,

Matthias Katzfuss • Bayesian Computational Tools, Christian P. Robert • Bayesian Computation Via Markov Chain Monte Carlo,

Radu V. Craiu, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal • Build, Compute, Critique, Repeat: Data Analysis with Latent

Variable Models, David M. Blei • Structured Regularizers for High-Dimensional Problems:

Statistical and Computational Issues, Martin J. Wainwright

• High-Dimensional Statistics with a View Toward Applications in Biology, Peter Bühlmann, Markus Kalisch, Lukas Meier

• Next-Generation Statistical Genetics: Modeling, Penalization, and Optimization in High-Dimensional Data, Kenneth Lange, Jeanette C. Papp, Janet S. Sinsheimer, Eric M. Sobel

• Breaking Bad: Two Decades of Life-Course Data Analysis in Criminology, Developmental Psychology, and Beyond, Elena A. Erosheva, Ross L. Matsueda, Donatello Telesca

• Event History Analysis, Niels Keiding • Statistical Evaluation of Forensic DNA Profile Evidence,

Christopher D. Steele, David J. Balding • Using League Table Rankings in Public Policy Formation:

Statistical Issues, Harvey Goldstein • Statistical Ecology, Ruth King • Estimating the Number of Species in Microbial Diversity

Studies, John Bunge, Amy Willis, Fiona Walsh • Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Bibhas Chakraborty,

Susan A. Murphy • Statistics and Related Topics in Single-Molecule Biophysics,

Hong Qian, S.C. Kou • Statistics and Quantitative Risk Management for Banking

and Insurance, Paul Embrechts, Marius Hofert

Access this and all other Annual Reviews journals via your institution at www.annualreviews.org.

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