Slides for the seminar on “Constructing ‘water worlds’: the social implications of technical systems in water governance”. Hosted by the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

1. CONSTRUCTING 'WATER WORLDS': THE
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF TECHNICAL
SYSTEMS IN WATER GOVERNANCE
Kavindra R. Paranage
Doctoral Researcher
School of Social Sciences
MONASH University

2. Water
Water is the transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly
colorless chemical substance that is the main
constituent of Earth's streams, lakes, and oceans, and
the fluids of most living organisms, and that is vital for
all known forms of life, even though it provides no
calories or organic nutrients. Its chemical formula is
H₂O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one
oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by
covalent bonds. Water is the name of the liquid state of
H₂O at standard ambient temperature and pressure.
Density: 1 g/cubic cm
Boiling point: 100 °C
Melting point: °C
Chemical formula: H₂O
Average Molar mass: 18 M
IUPAC ID: Water
Text under CC-BY-SA license

3. CONTENTS
1
‘Water’ and
‘Water Worlds’ in
the literature
2
The Mahaweli
Development
Programme:
Case Analysis
3
Political
rationalities and
technical
systems
4
Water related
infrastructure
and social
configurations

4. ‘WATER’ AND ‘WATER
WORLDS’ IN THE
LITERATURE

5. PARADIGMS OF WATER USE,
GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
1. The ‘hydraulic mission of water management’
“… In the history of all young civilized countries, the
time arrives when big and imaginative water
development projects must be launched to promote
growth of areas of development, the formation of
industries, agriculture and the generation of electric
power …”
(RSA, 1962, p. 3, quoted in Turton et al., 2004, pp. 183-184)
“… All water is known as an abstract, measurable,
isomorphic quantity …”
(Linton, 2010, pp. 34-35)

6. 2. The ‘neo-liberal hydro mentality’
“… The neo liberal hydro mentality reforms water
management processes by involving private bodies and
public-private-partnerships (PPPs). Privatization,
commodification, marketization, reduction of state
involvement, de-regulation and decentralization of water
was the order of the day …”
(Bakker, 2009, pp. 176)
Principle No. 1: Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource,
essential to sustain life, development and the environment.
Principle No. 2: Water development and management should
be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners
and policy-makers at all levels.
Principle No. 3: Women play a central part in the provision,
management and safeguarding of water.
Principle No. 4: Water has an economic value in all its
competing uses and should be recognised as an economic good.
Declaration of the International Conference on Water and the
Environment, Dublin, Ireland, 26th-31st January 1992

7. 3. The ‘integrated water resources management’
paradigm
“… The IWRM framework embraces three basic and
sustainable criteria for water management: social
equity; economic efficiency; and ecological
sustainability …”
(Lenton and Muller, 2009, pp. 75)
Despite it’s popularity, the IWRM framework has
engendered numerous criticisms in terms of:
1. Its vagueness and inherent failure to provide specific
programme recommendations
2. The enormous challenge of integrating the potential
range of factors and the knowledge needed to manage
water resources
3. Its apolitical attitude towards water use, management
and governance

8. 4. The paradigm of ‘water worlds’
• The paradigm of ‘water worlds’ is a new
development in the literature of water management,
use and governance (2008 onwards).
• The paradigm of water worlds expressly steers
away from analysing water as a separate ‘eco-
technical’ problem. Rather it looks at water as an
element that is culturally or socially embedded.
• Importantly, the paradigm of water worlds also
refrains from looking at water as a purely ‘social or
cultural construct’.
• This new agenda of research principally looks at
(A) how political, cultural and social rationalities of
humans govern the use and management of water;
and (B) how water management systems – once in
place – create various social modalities and
configurations.

9. THE MAHAWELI
DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME

10. THE MAHAWELI
DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME
The Mahaweli Development
programme is known as the largest
multipurpose national development
programme in the history of Sri
Lanka and is also considered as the
keystone of the government's
development programme that was
initiated in 1961.
The step wise implementation of the
Mahaweli Development Programme
would have lasted about 30 years
from 1975. However, the newly
appointed J. R. Jayewardene
government in 1977 decided to
speed up the programme and
complete it within its term of office
of 6 years.

11. POLITICAL RATIONALITIES THAT
SHAPE WATER GOVERNANCE IN THE
MAHAWELI DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME
1. Macro (state) level thinking
 Centralized planning by the state in terms of
determining what to cultivate, cultivation targets,
when and how to issue water etc.
2. Commercial and developmental thinking
 The design of the technical arrangement of the
Mahaweli water systems closely mirror both the
Tennessee Valley commercial irrigation systems (in the
U.S.A.) and the Murray Darling commercial irrigation
system (in Australia).
 Commercial dam-based irrigation and power
generation designs of this type were largely a
throwback to the first hydraulic mission ideals that
were discussed earlier. This type of designs also exist
inter alia in India, Pakistan, China, Egypt and
Vietnam. Such systems are, however, gradually being
dismantled in the first world.
 The structuring of farmer organizations according to
a profit-based mandate.

12. CONTD:
3. Prioritizing power generation in response to the demands of the open
economy.
4. Prioritizing the ‘economic’ use of water as a resource at an ontological
level, leading to the prioritization of water for cultivation at the expense
of drinking. Similar prioritizations of water for one cause over another
has been previously noted both India (Anand, 2017) and in British
Columbia, Canada (Yates, et. al., 2017) among the first nations. The
prioritizing of certain uses of water is also widely different from
alternative irrigation designs in Sri Lanka, such as the tank cascade
system, which utilizes a more eco-systemic and holistic approach.
4. Accelerating the programme to be completed within 5-years instead
of within the stipulated 30-year period, as per the changes in political
orientation.
5. Merging with the tank cascade system design in System – H due to
political protests generated by the villagers.
See also: Paranage, K., 2018. Understanding the Relationship between
Water Infrastructure and Socio-Political Configurations: A Case Study
from Sri Lanka. Water, 10(10), p.1402.

13. THE INVERSE: HOW TECHNICAL SYSTEMS
ENGENDER PARTICULAR SOCIAL
CONFIGURATIONS
1. Water scarcity based on
inattention to topological
considerations (e.g. the
Thambuttegama Units 3, 6 and 5,
in Mahaweli System – H).
2. The prioritization of water for
cultivation as opposed to drinking
and sanitary purposes has led to
a relatively high-level prevalence
of chronic kidney diseases.
3. Encroachments that occur
partly as a result of tightly
regulating land-water use.
See also: Paranage, K., 2018.
Constructing the ‘legalities’ of
encroachments in dam, canal, and
stream reservations in the north-
central province of Sri Lanka.
Development Studies Research,
5(1), pp.59-68.

14. CONTD.
3.1. The ‘one family-one farm’
segregation and individuation
has unforeseen consequences.
While it is in every famer’s
interest to get an “adequate”
amount of water for cultivation,
whether others get water or not
could be—from the production
organizational point of view of
the individual farmer—rather
irrelevant.
3.2. A limited or rational use of
water is not necessarily in the
interest of the individual farmer
who is well placed—at least
from the perspective of the
relations within a turnout area.

15. CONTD.
4.1. There could be, and often is, a significant
discrepancy in the amount of water received between
head-end and tail-end farmers in the Mahaweli
system.
4.2. It also appears that the head-end and tail-end
water disparities have led to the downstream
communities being stratified in various ways (e.g. by
tail-end farmers demonstrating a marked preference
to depart from farming to seek alternative forms of
employment).
4.3. These particular problems are even more
pronounced in the absence of a strong and
cooperative farmer organization.

16. CONTD.
5.1. The tight control and regulation over questions such
as:
 What to cultivate?
 When to cultivate?
 How much water will be issued seasonally?
Leaves the farmers with little control over the process of
farming itself.
5.2. This fact itself has had the effect of farmers
increasingly refusing to take initiative over their
production timelines. Interviews in Systems H, B and C of
Mahaweli revealed this to be the dominant factor that
contributes to low interest overall in farming. This is also
corroborated – to a degree – by the bulk water
management system being well-received in System H.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

17. CONCLUSIONS
1. Water use, governance and management is and should be considered as being
culturally, politically and socially embedded in particular localized contexts.
2. This context-dependant aspect should be accounted for in comparing between
water management systems for efficacy and suitability.
3. Water management is not a ‘zero-sum’ game of finding the best technical solution
to particular questions regarding water. The human uses of water and their
management patterns are strongly shaped by a distinctive hydro-mentality based
on ontological, political, cultural and social premises.
4. Conversely, the technical systems in place to manage water can also shape,
reinforce or even transform social, political and even cultural relations between
communities of people.

18. REFERENCES
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