Water reservoirs in South India [Elektronische Ressource] : an anthropological approach / vorgelegt von Bettina Weiz

Bettina Weiz

Sujets

• Soziologie
• Social work

Informations

• Publié par: ludwig-maximilians-universitat_munchen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Water Reservoirs in South India
An anthropological approach
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie
an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
München
vorgelegt von
Bettina Weiz
aus
München
Druck: Richard Schmelcher
München
Abgabe: 2005Referent: Prof. Dr. Frank Heidemann,
1. Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Matthias S. Laubscher
2. Korreferent: PD Dr. Ulrich Demmer
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung:
13. Februar 2006Contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 4
1.1 Water in the spotlight of international concern................................................................ 4
1.2 Water reservoirs in South India........................................................................................ 5
1.3 Method ........................................................................................................................... 13
1.4 The plan of this thesis .................................................................................................... 16
2. Setting................................................................................................................................... 17
2.1 The region in general...................................................................................................... 17
Geography ........................................................................................................................ 17
Agriculture ....................................................................................................................... 19
Politics.............................................................................................................................. 24
History.............................................................................................................................. 25
2.2 Tirukkalukundram.......................................................................................................... 27
Size and setting................................................................................................................. 27
Castes ............................................................................................................................... 29
Mobility..... 35
Religion..... 38
2.3 Oragadam ....................................................................................................................... 42.. 42
Castes...... 42
Mobility..... 43
Religion ............................................................................................................................ 43
2.4 Irumbuli....... 45
Size and setting................................................................................................................. 45
Castes ............................................................................................................................... 45
Mobility..... 46
Religion..... 47
3. øri: Shape.............................................................................................................................. 48
4. øri: Utilisation and management .......................................................................................... 57
5. øri: Religious aspects ........................................................................................................... 77
6. øri: Perception ...................................................................................................................... 90
7. øris in local politics — case study........................................................................................ 105
8. kuëam: Shape ...................................................................................................................... 134
9. kuëam: Utilisation and management................................................................................... 142
10. kuëam: Religious aspects .................................................................................................. 162
11. kuëam: Perception............................................................................................................. 195
12. kuëams in local politics — case study ................................................................................ 218
13. Notes on water..... 247
14. Water reservoirs and energy............................................................................................. 267
14.1 øri ............................................................................................................................... 267
14.2 kuëam .......................................................................................................................... 273
15. Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 277
References .............................................................................................................................. 281
Summary in German /Zusammenfassung .............................................................................. 292
Lebenslauf......... 2991. Introduction 4
1. Introduction
1.1 Water in the spotlight of international concern
Water has arrived into the limelight of international concern in the past decade. Horrible figures are
reiterated like mantras: “At the beginning of 2000 one-sixth (1.1 billion people) of the world's
population was without access to improved water supply (...) Approximately 4 billion cases of
diarrhoea each year cause 2.2 million deaths, mostly among children under the age of five. This is
equivalent to one child dying every 15 seconds, or 20 jumbo jets crashing every day. These deaths
represent approximately 15% of all child deaths under the age of five in developing countries. Water,
sanitation, and hygiene interventions reduce diarrhoeal disease on average by between one-quarter and
1 2one-third.” This is connected with a call for action.
There have always been droughts and shortages of water; perhaps the first to shock on an international
3level was that in South India in 1876 — 1878. The recently soaring international concern for water
4coincides with the move to include the fluid in the global market. In most countries of the earth, the
supply of fresh water is — or has been until lately — the task of the state or of institutions, be they profit
or nonprofit, that are rather localised. This nexus started crumbling at about the time when former
socialist countries, entering into the global market economy, opened their doors (more precisely their
5mains and sewers) for international corporations. These identified water supply as a new market.
Companies that are based in France, Germany and the USA have gained a say in the supply of water to
6people on the other side of the globe.

1 WHO 2000.
2 In the frame of the goal of sustainable development formulated during the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992, the
UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 set down targets in which the international community pledged, firstly, to
halve by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water; and, secondly,
to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources, by developing water management strategies at the
regional, national and local levels, which promote both equitable access and adequate supplies. UNESCO 2003.
The documents of the Earth Summit at Rio are available at http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/about/ftp/riodoc.htm. The
latest call for action is based on the Resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations 58 /217
launching an “International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’ 2005 — 2015”.
3 Photographs taken during that drought, for example, by Willoughby Wallace Hooper, were among the first
pictures of almost-starved disaster-afflicted people that reached Europe and North America, and they helped to
create the generic image of poor India or generally the poor South. See Mesenhöller 1996.
4 Mirrored in the debates whether water is an economic good or a common good or a basic human right (there is
no world wide legally binding document; according to the General Comment No. 15 on the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 26,11,2002, water should be treated as a public good, a
social and cultural good, and not primarily as an economic good or a commodity: CESCR 2002) and whether its
supply shall be considered to be a public service (in the sense of the French service publique), a “general interest
service” or plainly a business. See Hall 2001.
5 For example, Werner Böttcher, of RWE Aqua GmbH (the world’s third largest water supplier), expects
investments on a scale of up to Euro 300 milliard in his sector to be made in the next years. Interview 15,5,2002.
For the activities of Suez (now Ondeo) and Vivendi (now Veolia Water), the largest private water supply
corporations, see http://www.suez.com and http://www.veoliawater.com and also
http://www.publicintegrity.org/water/db.aspx?sID=db&par=6 for a third party assessment.
6 Various international conferences and associations (e.g., the second World Water Forum at Den Haag /The
Netherlands in March, 2000 and the first Freshwater Conference in Bonn / Germany in De