"Small places, large issues: Farmer-managed irrigation in the Karakorum (Baltistan) and trans-Himalaya (Ladakh)"

Lecture by Joe Hill at ZEF in Bonn

This presentation centres on two research sites where fieldwork was conducted in spring/summer 2013: the Shigar valley in Skardu district (Baltistan), Pakistan, and the Suru valley in Kargil district (Ladakh), India. The villagers have in common religious and cultural practices, ethnicity, language, lifestyles. Their livelihood strategies, the main pillars of which are irrigated agriculture and animal husbandry, are also alike due to the comparable agro-ecological characteristics of the mountain valleys. Historically the two regions were conjoined; by 1840 the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) controlled the kingdoms of Ladakh and Baltistan. Influenced by the British Empire, the district of Ladakh – incorporating Skardu, Kargil and Leh tehsils – was established by 1901. Subsequently, for half a century the people were ruled by common bureaucratic methods. Since 1947, when J&K was excluded from the Partition agreement of Pakistan and India, the people of the region have been divided by the Line of Control – still considered a ceasefire line. The line is impermeable to the local population, and on either side political developments have differed greatly, influenced by developments in the Pakistani and Indian mainland. As a result different development trajectories – here viewed through the lens of irrigated agriculture – have been experienced over the past six decades, shaped by state politics (which also controls entry of foreign donors and agencies).

The presentation highlights the place-based nature of irrigation management over time, the territorial and networked characteristics of irrigation interventions, as well as issues pertaining to the researcher’s mobility and positionality. The spatially-orientated post-area studies perspective throws up several insights: the idea of ‘mountain specificities’ (Jodha et al 1992) challenges the relevance of traditional area studies categories; and theoretical insights from hills, for example the Western Himalaya, are not always applicable in mountain valleys, e.g. the trans-Himalaya. Field research on natural resource management shows that the significance of the nation-state (‘as container’) cannot be underplayed. While political territories come to mind when thinking of containers, this presentation also considers other (territory-guarding) containers researchers may be bound by, e.g. adherence to a certain ideological view of development. A researcher’s mobility (e.g. ability to access information) can be reliant upon networks with local elites (themselves embedded in networks and playing roles as politicians, bureaucrats, in NGOs), that if neglected increase the challenges faced during short-term qualitative field research. The importance of ethnography in its traditional sense is reaffirmed when considering the insights gleaned in the field.

Time and place: January 9th, 2014 at 1.30-2.30 pm at ZEF, ground floor, right conference room.

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