Irit Eguavoen Livres

The Center for Development Research (ZEF) is an international and interdisciplinary research institute of the University of Bonn, Germany. Local governance of natural resources implies the transfer of administrative duties from the national to the regional level, as well as the day-to-day management by local users. The case studies range from forests in Vietnam and Africa, African wetlands, to water in Afghanistan and land in Malaysia. The book illustrates the dynamics in the local arena under consideration of national administrative and legal re-organization and analyses the dynamics of this conflict-prone interface.

Household water provides the entry point for this ethnography and study of institutional change. The book discusses the political economy of poverty and presents the polyphone discourse on water and the environment. The author outlines water history and water rights from the 1970s onwards, and analyzes social dynamics. She offers a critical voice in the debate on climate change by arguing that local and global perceptions are not necessarily coherent.