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    Local Initiatives...

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Local Initiatives

Collective Water Management in Rural Bangladesh by: Jennifer E. Duyne

The book illustrates the ingenuity of the Bangladeshi people to manage their water resources, without any institutional or material support and examines the conditions under which people get together to pursue common goals through a systematic and comparative analysis.

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Details

ISBN: 9788124602669
Year Of Publication: 2004
Edition: 1st
Pages : xxii, 290
Bibliographic Details : Several line-drawings & maps; 40 Coloured Photographs; Glossary; Bibligraphy; Index
Language : English
Binding : Hardcover
Publisher: D.K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Size: 23 cm.
Weight: 650

Overview

This book illustrates how people in rural Bangladesh, without any institutional or material support, manage their water resources to make their environment safer or more productive. Case studies of over seven hundred local initiatives show that people have an underestimated capacity to design, construct, maintain and operate relatively complex water management systems and to mobilise large amounts of human, material and financial resources. They are neither passive victims of their environment, nor merely responding or reacting to programmes or services provided by ‘outside’ agencies. It was found, however, that the capacity to organise is much higher in some regions of Bangladesh than in others. This leads the author to examine conditions under which people get together to pursue common goals through a systematic, comparative analysis of the four regions covered by the research project. The findings are further reviewed against the backdrop of academic and policy debates on collective action, participation, and management of common property resources.

Contents

Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations, Units & Measures and Currency
List of Figures, Maps and Tables
List of Visuals
1. Context, Objectives and Approach
Objectives
Endogenous initiatives in Water Resource
Management
Research Issues and Methodology
Geographical Setting
2. Conditions for Collective Action
Collective Action Optimism
Collective Action Pessimism
Group Attributes
The Role of the Context
Summary
3. National Context
Natural Environment
Patterns of Human Adaptation
Aspects of Village Organisation
Agrarian Structure
4. The Role of the State in Water Resource Management
Hydraulic Infrastructure and Water Management Prior to Modern State Interventions
Development of Modern Flood Control, Drainage and Large Scale Canal Irrigation Systems
Minor Irrigation Development
5. Canals, Dikes, Cuts and Closures…
The Logic of Local Water Management Initiatives
Irrigation Canals
Crossdams
“Janghals”
Cutting and Closing Embankments
Drainage Outlets and Irrigation Inlets
Raising Roads and Embankments for Flood Protection 127 Salt Inlets, Ring Bundhs and a Partition Dike
Collective Purchase and Management of State-provided Irrigation Schemes
Cleaning Canals and Embankments
Operation and Maintenance of BWDB Regulators
6. Socio-Economic and Organisational Dimensions 145
Distribution of Benefits
Patterns of Resource Mobilisation
Organisational Practices
7. Contextual Conditions for Collective Action:
the Singularity of Chaptir Haor
The Haor Basin
Chaptir Haor
Natural Environment
Organisation of Agricultural Production
Agrarian Structure
Haor Fishery
The Role of the State
Conclusions
8. Conclusion
Determinants of Collective Action: Group
Attributes vs. Contextual Factors
Policy Implications
Glossary
Visuals
Bibliography

Meet the Author
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Jennifer E. Duyne, who obtained her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Zurich, began her research in 1983 into the impact of small credit programmes on informal credit systems in rural Bangladesh. After a number of postings in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Southern India, studying the social organisation of irrigated agriculture, she returned to Bangladesh in 1992, working as a social development advisor to a water resource development project, funded by the Government of the Netherlands, until 1998. Within that framework, she became responsible for a national research project on indigenous water management practices in rural Bangladesh upon which this book is based. At present, Dr. Duyne is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Zurich and at the University of Applied Sciences in Lugano (Switzerland).
Books of Jennifer E. Duyne