Music and Water

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent" - Victor Hugo

For the last couple of weeks I have been thinking a lot about the links between music and water.  One of our project interns, Niko, studied music for his first degree at SOAS and is now pursuing a master's in development studies.  Dr Frances Cleaver, the project director, thought it would be a useful that Niko examine the link between cosmologies and water, given his interests.  Quickly this evolved into a mini-project on the links between water and music, which has prompted me to think about many different cultural references to water in musi and how music acts as a medium to reproduce cultural and/or cosmological beliefs

After doing a little bit of internet research I learned about some references to water in African American slaves' struggles for liberation.  For example the song "Wade in the Water" is a quite well known song and this website gives a brief description about what the song means.  It is interesting how water is conveyed as a protective resource, one that would allow for successful escape.  And it is similar with the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd", which folklore suggests was used to lead slaves to freedom up north.  In this song though it is the big dipper (drinking gourd) constellation which will lead slaves to freedom, there is still a link made between water and freedom.  Although these two examples are not referring to water for drinking, hygiene, or development more broadly, songs like these still frame the way water is conceptualised on the whole. 

A couple of days ago Niko and I met with Dr Angela Impey in SOAS's music department, to try to pursue this link in a more academic fashion.  We discussed a range musicological aspects which can be linked to water, and I became fascinated with the ways that water has been linked to music in different societies and within academic settings.  This makes me wonder:  What do water-related songs mean to the people who have created them and continue to pass them on?  What can music tell us about the way environments and ecosystems are conceptualised by different people?  What are the implications of the link between water and music for development scholars and practitioners?

Institutionalised

Our team recently met with our new interns for the year, which was exciting.  It was exciting to start our second year at SOAS and to have our second round of interns from the Department for Development Studies.  We went through the usual induction procedures and told them about our project, then spoke a little about our individual interests and how we all got into water and development.

When our interns were telling us about their interests, I realised that I was unable to escape my own framework for conceptualising development problems.  One intern was interested in the erosion of state sovereignty as a result of globalisation and another was interested in structural violence in natural resources management and issues of (in)equity within systems.  I immediately realised that both interns were interested in the roles of different institutions in international development, and they are lucky that Dr Cleaver, the project Director, specialises in institutions.  Then, I suddenly remembered that a few weeks back I was thinking of the dissertation of our former scholarship student, who wrote on the role of institutions in response to the 2008 cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe.  Then it became evident that I was consumed by institutions and their role in water governance and governance more widely; that it is one of the main lenses through which I see development problems.

When I discuss the role of institutions, I am using a broader sense of the word, which encompasses both formal and informal institutions.  Having studied gender at a post-graduate degree, and having focused on gender and land rights in my master's dissertation, I have a foundation for beginning to explore debates on the interface between formal institutions (eg water committees) and social institutions (eg gender, class, race, sexuality).  Participation in local, national, and international water events, as well as discussions with the Water for Africa Research project team has also influenced my perspective on institutions for water and development.  Dr Cleaver also has some great publications on social institutions and natural resource management (eg 2002 "Reinventing Insitutions: Bricolage and Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management"; 1998 "Moral Ecological Rationality"), which have helped me to understand how a range of social factors play a role in water governance.

In development there is also a really big emphasis on "getting institutions right" which is more along the lines of Ostrom's work.  This body of work focuses on formal institutions, standardisation of systems, issues of rights, and other related things.  For example it has become a part of standard, mainstream policy to decentralise water supply systems, as well as systems for good water governance.  These decentralised institutions are thought to promote community management, local participation in decision making, and help to empower marginalised communities by giving them access to a space to have a voice.  Although there are some major limits to a focus primarily on formalised institutions, I can also see why they are important.

So between all the recent and ongoing debates I have with myself on the role of institutions, I realised that I have been "institutionalised" into institutional approaches to development.  I find it difficult to escape many times.  It is hard to ignore the role that institutions play in governance and governmentality.  They are so pervasive, so powerful.  I wonder,  is everything is about institutions?  How can I be more inclusive in my analysis of water and development?  Within the scope of development certainly there is a large interest in institutions, but how can we enable them to work together?  How are people able, or unable, to challenge the range of institutions that exist?  How can we improve these institutions to foster the equity of livelihoods?

International Symposium on Rural Water Services

International Symposium on Rural Water Services

“Providing Sustainable Water Services at Scale”

Kampala, Uganda - 13th and 14th April, 2010

The Thematic Group on Scaling Up Rural Water Services is organising an international symposium on providing sustainable rural water services at scale in collaboration with the Ministry of Water and Environment of the Government of Uganda.

The main aims of the symposium are to bring together research findings and lessons learned on how to improve sustainable rural water services at scale, to debate and analyse these lessons and to identify common principles to improve policy and practice.

The target audience of the symposium includes practitioners and policy makers from governments, donor organisations and local and international NGOs. 

The format for the two-day symposium will allow participants to share and learn from global experiences in the form of key note presentations, country case studies and interactive work-sessions. It is envisaged that this two-day symposium will provide inputs for the development of a general framework of principles for sustainable rural water services. Topics for debate will include:

·         What are the real costs of sustainability and who pays for them?
·         How can the role of the private sector in rural water be encouraged?
·         Is there a future for the community management model?
·         How can self-supply of services be encouraged?
·         What are the mechanisms to encourage harmonisation and alignment at intermediate (local government) level?
·         What are the most appropriate funding flows – for national governments, the private sector and donors – for supporting more sustainable service delivery?
·         How can decentralisation be strengthened in order to provide sustainable services at scale?

Call for Participation

There will be no open call for papers, but instead participants who have specific experience are encouraged to submit inputs in the form of short presentations with a two-page summary; guidance will be provided. Participants are encouraged to share their work and ideas at the symposium through other media such as film, photo essays, animated presentations or other methods.  All inputs will be reviewed by a committee created for the event.  More details on the format of the symposium, guidelines for submission of presentations and for registration will follow in the second announcement.

The symposium is supported within the framework of the Triple-S (Sustainable Services at Scale) initiative being managed by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 

Water Governance in a Falling Metropolis

One of the non-development, but still nerdy, blogs I follow is Ecoconomics, which discusses economic issues within the context of all our favourite comic book heroes and villains.  As someone who has not been trained in economics, following this blog is a fun way to learn about basic econ theory.

Last week I read a post about water in Metropolis, the home of superman.  To sum up the water and sanitation system in Metropolis is destroyed and its citizens are extremely dehydrated, lack adequate sewerage, and are paying ridiculous amounts of money for water sold to them by 'thugs'.  The entry poster, ShadowBanker, thinks that the comic exaggerates the level of suffering because there would be decent humanitarian response from the government and the private sector, thus ensuring the security of the citizens of Metropolis.

I can see what ShadowBanker is saying....in theory a city with resources that Metropolis has should deal relatively well with disasters.  However if we can compare this to a real life example such as New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we can see that the depiction of post-attack Metropolis in the comics might actually be more accurate than what ShadowBanker imagines.  Granted New Orleans is not one of the richest cities in the world, but the US government is wealthy and did not do enough for the people of New Orleans with respect to water and sanitation.  This brings me back to the role of the government in service provision.  Governments (in the global north and south) are key in providing basic infrastructure for everyday use, but also in responding to natural or evil-villain-made disasters.  Also when looking at New Orleans we can see how politics and social issues impacted humanitarian response, but the ShadowBanker's analysis of what happened in Metropolis is presented in an apolitical or asocietal manner.  In the DC Universe, cities, states, and governments may act apolitically or altruistically, but water governance in the north and south cannot be seen as separated from its political, historical, cultural context.

Another interesting issue brought up in the post is that of informal providers.  ShadowBanker talks about 'thugs' supplying water to the city's people for high prices, but small vendors are a very important part of water supply systems.  The Asian Development Bank found that in some parts of Manila up to 50% of people rely on informal vendors for water, which means these vendors are filling a massive gap in service provision.  Water is often sold at higher prices, and this is a big problem when trying to service the poor, but in some places there may not be another option.  Instead of demonising these vendors, perhaps it would be better to discuss the issue of regulation.

Despite my qualms with this Ecocomics post, it raises some good issues with regards to water governance.

Until next time superfans...

Toxic Water

The issue of water quality is very important because of its strong links to health and livelihoods of water users. The NY Times has been writing a series on water called Toxic Waters, which talks about some ways water can become contaminated and its impacts on lives of people in the US. This series examines the links between different types of pollution and water quality, and also shows that for some Americans this is a hindrance on their day-to-day-life. I particularly liked Duhigg's entry on the neglect of water laws because it displays the role of politics in dictating water policy, the detrimental effects of poor water quality on people, and highlights the flaws in current systems of regulation. Also Duhigg's focus on the EPA throughout the series provides readers with a well-needed critique of current environmental policy.

One interesting thing that has been gaining attention recently is the link between water quality and gender "bending". While there seems to be a growing body of work focused on water quality and gender bending in fish and other animals, there have been growing concerns about how this effects men. One Canadian study shows that tiny traces of birth control hormones dumped into a lake (I do not know how environmentally friendly that was) caused a crash in the fish population due to its effects on male fish. Scientists are worried about the implications for human populations since the traces of hormones peed out by women on birth control end up in our drinking water and are so small that they cannot be filtered out.

Toxic Waters and the issue of gender bending leaves us with questions about water quality that are applicable to developed and developing countries. What can we as individuals and communities do to keep our waters clean for our usage? How can we improve regulation and technology? How can we ensure that water provision improves economic, health, and livelihoods aspects of people's lives?

Squatter Water

One large problem in trying to provide water and sanitation in cities is trying to reach communities in peri-urban areas and slums. People who live in these parts of cities often reside there informally, albeit rather permanently. The blog squattercity does a good job of highlighting many of the problems slum dwellers face and exposes how governments can make problems worse by trying to either ignore the existence of these communities or by neglecting the range of urban and rural problems that peri-urban communities have to deal with.

Recently squattercity has been commenting about Sodom and Gomorrah communities in Accra, which have been receiving a lot of attention from the Ghanaian government, but not in a positive way. Accra Metropolitan Assembly is currently in talks with local utilities to cut off water and electricity to these communities, beginning the process of demolition of these communities, The Daily Graphic states. In addition the government is trying to force people out of these communities, without providing adequate housing elsewhere. Here a Ghanaian academic voices frustration with the government's way of dealing with the problems in these communities.

This case brings up some interesting issues in how to deal with development in peri-urban and slum areas. Although it is relatively common for governments to tear down areas deemed to be 'slums', this causes massive problems for water and sanitation in the areas where these people move and usually ends up transferring other problems as well. Inevitably people from Sodom and Gomorrah will move to another community, or create a space to live, and these people will suffer from the same problems that used to plague them in their old communities. Failure to provide proper water and sanitation infrastructure will perpetuate the same sorts of livelihood, health, food, sewerage problems that previously existed.

Squattercity also has some interesting commentary on how the people of these communities have been labelled as "dirty" and have also been called a threat to national security. These posts highlight how squatter or informal communities suffer from social exclusion and are further marginalised because they reside in these poor areas, with no infrastructure, and very few public resources.

Governments need to find a way to deal with informal communities in a better way. Destroying homes and cutting off basic services (like water, sanitation, electricity) does not help to improve the lives of people in these communities and only creates more problems for governments to deal with in the future. This is not to target the Ghanaian government, similar situations have occurred in Brazil, Cambodia, Liberia, and elsewhere. It is more to raise the question of what are the aims of the governments in these situations? How do people get access to water in the interim period between eviction and settling, and how much do they pay? How does this affect water and sanitation in areas where people settle? And on informal settlements and water in general, can you justify charging people for water and water systems when they do not have a claim to the land they live on?

Hi! We are the Water for Africa Research Project.

This is the Water for Africa Research Project blogging on 'Working for Water'. The Water for Africa Research Project (WFA) is a project based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Development Studies Department. This project is primarily concerned with issues linking water governance, equity, and poverty in Africa and other developing regions. For more information about our project also check out our website.

'Working for Water' will not necessarily be about the WFA project per se, but it will encompass many of the issues that we find important and issues that we have particular knowledge in. This is a place to openly discuss water issues and broader problems in development. We look forward to engaging with our readers and fostering a better understanding of water-related issues.