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"No Water!" Socio-Ecological Transformations in an Uva Basin Village in Sri Lanka

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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/36265731 "No Water!" : Socio-ecological transformations in an Uva Basin village in Sri Lanka Thesis · January 1995 Source: OAI CITATION READS 1 32 1 author: Ralf Starkloff PQ 8 PUBLICATIONS 84 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Social Ecology of Water Scarcity View project Participatory Irrigation Management and its Constraints View project All content following this page was uploaded by Ralf Starkloff on 03 September 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. "NO WATER!" SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN AN UVA BASIN VILLAGE IN SRI LANKA A Dissertation Presented to The FaCulty of the Graduate SChool of Arts and SCiences Brandeis University Department of Sociology Gordon Fellman, Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Ralf Starkloff May 1994 This dissertation, direCted and approved by the candidate's Committee, has been aCCepted and approved by the Graduate FaCulty of Brandeis University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY _________________________________ Dean, Graduate SChool of Arts and SCiences Dissertation Committee ______________________________________ (chair) Gordon Fellman, Department of Sociology _____________________________________ Shulamit Reinharz, Department of Sociology _____________________________________ George Ross, Department of Sociology _____________________________________ Robert Wood, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal JustiCe, Rutgers University Copyright by Ralf Starkloff 1994 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the people in Kitulwatte who partiCipated in my research by teaChing me about their lives and their landsCape, in partiCular those who aCquired the names of Fatima, Heenbanda, Gunasingha and Piyadasa in the course of my writing.* I want to thank my aCademiC advisor Professor Gordon Fellman and the other members of my dissertation committee at Brandeis University, Professor Shulamit Reinharz and Professor George Ross, as well as Professor Robert Wood at Rutgers University, for their patience and support. I am indebted to Ajantha Palihawadana at the Rural Integrated Development ProjeCt in Nuwara Eliya and Lalith Chandrapala at the Sri Lankan MeteorologiCal Department in Colombo, for providing me with important data and for sharing aspeCts of their know- ledge. I wish to aCknowledge the cooperation extended by Dean Professor P. Wilson of the FaCulty of Arts, Professor Wanasinghe, Professor Karunanayake, Dr. Rohana Ulluwishewa and Gamini de Alwis of the Geography Department, at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Further thanks are due to Yvonne Everett, K.A. Jayaratna, Pradeep Jeganathan, Ian Nuberg, Professor Martin O'Connor, Alex and Ramya Perera, M. Rajaratnam, Professor * I have chosen to use pseudonyms for the names of the research village and the people whose voiCes will be heard in this dissertation, in order to proteCt their identities. iv UlriCh SChweinfurth, Arne Tollan and Professor Carl Widstrand, all of whom went out of their ways to help my work. I feel deep gratitude towards my children Naima and Chendru and my wife Nireka Weeratunge for bearing with me in the long process of the production of this dissertation. Nireka has given me invaluable support by partiCipating in our cooperative research pro- Cess and by sharing her companionship on our journey. I finally want to express my appreCiation for the land and its non-human partiCipants in the Uva basin. They have nourished me and allowed me to experience a closeness never known before to a child of the city. v ABSTRACT "NO WATER!" SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN AN UVA BASIN VILLAGE IN SRI LANKA A dissertation presented to the FaCulty of the Graduate SChool of Arts and SCiences of Brandeis University, Waltham, MassaChusetts by Ralf Starkloff The social construction of water sCarcity in the village of Kitulwatte and its impaCt on the livelihoods of local households are investigated. The inquiry's socio-eCologiCal frame- work contends that nature is neither a functionally integrated universe nor humanity's adversary, but an open partiCipatory system of co-dependent and mutually structuring relationships between diverse aCtors and phenomena. The integration of sociologiCal with eCologiCal knowledge, partiCularly eCo-hydrology, is proposed, in order to understand transformations in the relationship between the hydrologiCal cycle and other eCosystem partiCipants, speCifiCally the impaCt and consequences of human landuse praCtiCes. To study local knowledge and landuse praCtiCes partiCipant observation of the people (N=86 households) and landsCape comprising Kitulwatte's miCro-watershed were Combined with structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews of a sample of thirteen village households representing signifiCant social charaCteristiCs (judgement sampling). For- esters, development consultants, state administrators, water engineers and environmen- vi talists were interviewed as well. Landuse, demographiC, health and rainfall data are evaluated. Water sCarcity in Kitulwatte results from a complex multi-Causal process of landuse Changes. Land degradation and resource competition are caused by the introduction of monocrop tree plantations by Sri Lanka's Forest Department, the adoption of vegetable Cash cropping by local farmers and the settlement of Kitulwatte's growing population in suburbanised hamlets. High productivity landuse and extraCtive water proCurement undermine their own viability by impairing the conditions of production of water in the hydro-Cycle's landphase while simultaneously raising competitive water demand. The vil- lagers' crop cultivation, household water supply and health are adversely affeCted. The CapaCity of farmers to compensate for the loss of locally produced water and soil fertility by intensifying cash crop cultivation with external inputs (agroChemiCals, kerosine pumps) is constrained by the rising cost of production. While integrated watershed management in Kitulwatte is prevented by the fragmented knowledge and confliCtual resource claims of partiCipating human aCtors, current attempts at coping with Kitulwatte's livelihood crisis exaCerbate water sCarcity. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. OUTLINE OF A DISCOURSE ON WATER 2. TAKING THE PERSPECTIVE OF WATER The fundamental importance of water to life Critique of conventional approaChes Alternative concepts and analyses of crises Commoditisation as a conservation tool Research and water management 3. CONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NATURE AND SOCIETY ECology and sociology Nature as an adversary Nature as functional integration The limits of control viii 4. SITUATING KITULWATTE IN THE SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE Kitulwatte The monsoons From kingship to the dependent welfare state 5. THE RESEARCH ENCOUNTER The emergence of self and method A socio-eCologiCal approaCh to water sCarcity 6. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WATER SCARCITY Patana grasslands Forest fragments Tree plantations Hill-fields Homesteads Tea estates Valley-fields 7. FAILED INTERVENTIONS ix APPENDIX: Household Interview SChedule GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Distribution of total land owned by households in Kitulwatte, 1991 Table 2: Mean and range of monthly and annual preCipitation (mm) at Diyatalawa/Bandarawela, 1972 - 1991 Table 3: Mean and range of monthly and annual preCipitation (mm) at Dyraaba Estate, 1972 - 1991 Table 4: Time series analysis of annual rainfall at Diyatalawa/Bandarawela and Dyraaba Estate Table 5: AnalytiCal Dimensions of Kitulwatte's Livelihood System Table 6: Pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte MiCro-Watershed x Table 7: Change in the pattern of landuse in the Kitulwatte MiCro-Watershed between 1954 and 1988 Table 8: Selling PriCes of Urea Fertilizer (Retail) Table 9: Population and number of houses in Kitulwatte from 1891 to 1992 Table 10: Houses in Kitulwatte in 1954 and 1988 in five seleCted hamlets Table 11: Population and household data of Kitulwatte, 1990 Table 12: Distribution of highland owned by households in Kitulwatte, 1991 Table 13: Caste membership of households in Kitulwatte in 1991 Table 14: Monthly preCipitation (mm) during the rainy season and drought of 1991/1992 and monthly means for the 1972-1991 period at Bandarawela and Dyraaba Estate Table 15: Incidence of infeCtious waterborne diseases diagnosed at the DistriCt Hospital Bandarawela, 1990-1992 xi Table 16: Distribution of land in the valley-fields owned by households in Kitulwatte, 1991 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map 1: Kitulwatte MiCro-Watershed: Stream Flow and Contours Map 2: Landuse in the Kitulwatte MiCro-Watershed in 1954 Map 3: Landuse in the Kitulwatte MiCro-Watershed in 1988 Figure 1: Rainfall Partitioning [p] xii 1. OUTLINE OF A DISCOURSE ON WATER This doctoral dissertion is my analysis and interpretation of data generated in 23 months of fieldwork in the Sri Lankan Uva basin, and in the capital of Colombo between March 1991 and February 1993. I had come to the village of Kitulwatte with a general theme: to study socio-eCologiCal transformations and their effeCt on people's livelihoods. My research experience caused me to shift my speCifiC interest from the desire for a social movement to the social eCology of water. My work in Kitulwatte inevitably brought into focus the signifiCance of water to life: no water, no life. Social eCology may be charaCterized
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