Trevor Birkenholtz: "The Political Ecology of Drip Irrigation Infrastructure"

Описание: Associate Professor Trevor Birkenholtz, Pennsylvania State University (USA), Department of Geography.

ABSTRACT:
This paper draws on a case from northwestern India to examine the relationship between the diffusion of drip irrigation, state support programs and gendered labour dynamics in assembling and maintaining drip irrigation infrastructure.

Drip irrigation is promoted globally as a water conserving technology that enhances water-use efficiency by increasing yields with less water, while freeing up "saved" water for other uses. India leads the world in the rate of expansion of drip irrigation and total area. Relying on policy analysis and interviews with farmers, female labourers, drip irrigation dealers and government officials between 2015 and 2020, the paper has three main findings:

First, drip irrigation infrastructure takes on a form of "big water infrastructure" that is not only the result of state action but is realized through the aggregation of decentralized individual farmer adoption decisions, which hinge on a series of actors including female laborers.
Second, on-demand female labourers provide critical labour inputs, which are the origin of efficiency gains and lend the infrastructure its durability. The success of drip irrigation is due to a feminine labour subsidy, which becomes apparent by viewing drip irrigation not as a dis-embedded technology but as an infrastructure.
Third, the material politics of drip irrigation infrastructure are an emergent property of the gendered assembly of drip irrigation as infrastructure, which is not leading to major benefits for female labourers.
The conclusion discusses prospects for reassembling drip irrigation infrastructure in more materially just ways and its implications for the political ecology of water infrastructure.

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