Local Institutions in Globalized Societies (LINGS)
Final Report Abstract
A central theoretical challenge in the social sciences is to understand how social institutions emerge and how they change. Notwithstanding the long-standing interest of the social sciences in this topic, the key role attributed to institutions in contemporary theories of natural resource management makes these questions pertinent and pressing. In recent decades, Namibia has offered a unique opportunity to theorize these questions based on dense ethnographic observations: after independence in 1990, access to water profoundly changed in rural settings. Until then rural water supply in Namibia’s semi-arid northwest had rested on boreholes, drilled and managed by a governmental agency since the 1960s. The transformation of borehole management after 1990 was informed by the then dominant discourse in the global policy debate on water, most importantly the idea of community-based management (CBM). While previously the state had managed boreholes and rural citizens had been passive recipients of governmental services, now communities were urged to establish institutions facilitating the management of boreholes. While the supporters of the development regime promised that this would bring sustainability, economic development, and water for all, others bemoaned that the state was simply getting rid of its responsibilities. The aim of the LINGS project was to show ethnographically which resource-management institutions emerge at the intersection between global models, national policies, and local social, economic and political structures. LINGS then attempted to show how social institutions of water management are negotiated between local actors. LINGS further asked under which conditions institutions lead to cooperation and conflict. Finally, LINGS inquired into what impacts institutions of water management have on other social spheres. To accomplish this goal, the research design combined in-depth case studies with a large-N regional comparison, which we call ethnographic upscaling. The results show that the formal institutional structure envisioned with the new policies generally did not prevail for long in most settings. The original institutional set-up was soon replaced by hybrid institutions that were significantly impacted by existing social networks and culturally prescribed social roles. To theorize why this is so and how people are constrained and empowered by network structures and materialities of different kinds, we proposed the notion of institutional multiplexity. Institutional multiplexity describes how people are embedded in overlapping social networks and cannot separate the sharing of water e.g. from sharing in other domains. In combination with the entanglements produced by the water infrastructure which remains in place, this hinders the implementation of officially prescribed institutional design principles (e.g. fixing group boundaries, sharing costs proportional to use, formal sanctioning). However, institutional change also opens up other means for governing the environment. With the change in the institutional regimes, conflicts and economic inequality have increased. The results of the LINGS project were published in more than 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and seven monographs. Moreover, five of the six PhD projects were successfully completed.
Publications
- (2016) Encounters at the Water Point–An Ethnography of the Travelling Model of Community-based Water Management and its Application to Rural Water Supply in Namibia. Dissertation. Universität zu Köln
Kelbert T
- (2017) Kooperation unter Unsicherheit: Institutionelle Reformen und kommunale Wassernutzung im Nordwesten Namibias. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag
Linke T
(See online at https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839440483) - (2017) The Pump Keeps on Running. LIT Verlag Münster
Menestrey Schwieger DA
- (2019) Environmental (In) Justice in Namibia: Costs and benefits of communitybased water and wildlife management. Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky
Kiaka RD
- (2020) Comparing Cultures: Innovations in Comparative Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Schnegg M and Lowe ED
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108766388) - (2020) Shaping the African Savannah: from capitalist frontier to arid Eden in Namibia. Cambridge University Press
Bollig M
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108764025) - (2020) Under the Leadwood Tree. Disputing pastoral mobilities, land-access and translocality in post-colonial southern Kaoko. Dissertation. Universität zu Köln
Olwage E
