Description
Book SynopsisOffers an explanation for the durability of the kuhls of Kangra in the face of recurring environmental shocks and socioeconomic change. This book describes how farmers use and organize the kuhls and employs varied lines of theory and empirical data to account for the persistence of kuhls in the late twentieth century.
Trade Review"Though strongly recommended to scholars of common property resources, this book will prove a useful compendium to both specialists and lay readers interested in the documentation of institutional change under the growing pressures of modernity, in particular with a precious commodity like water."
* Electronic Green Journal *
"This book provides a comprehensive account of the persistence and transformation of kuhls— the centuries-old community-managed irrigation systems in the western Himalaya— under conditions of intermittent environmental stresses and ever-increasing pace of socioeconomic change. It accomplishes the task convincingly, with unusual clarity and flair, utilizing an array of variables ranging from endogenous factors to exogenous ones. . . . This book contains a wealth of information related to the ethnographic, historical, and sociocultural aspects of human-environment interactions in an important region of South Asia. For this and its skillful integration of theory and empirical evidence, it will be invaluable to colleagues and advanced students alike."
* American Anthropologist *
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction
1. An Explanatory Tapestry
2. The Dynamic Landscape of Kuhl Irrigation
3. Statemaking and Irrigation in Kangra
4. Patterns of Change
5. Networks of Interdependence
6. Dynamic Regimes, Enduring Flows
Appendix 1: A Note on Methods
Appendix 2: Two Kuhl Stories Recounted by Shyam Lal Sharma
Appendix 3: Summary Characteristics of Kuhl Regimes of the Neugal Watershed
Notes
Glossary
References
Index
