Irrigation, gender, and social geographies of the changing waterscapes of southeastern Anatolia

36 Pages·2017·1.57 MB·English

Irrigation, gender, and social geographies of
the changing waterscapes of southeastern
Anatolia

LEILA M. HARRIS

Corresponding Author: [email protected]

2006

Final version: Harris, L. (2006) Irrigation, Gender, and Social Geographies of the Changing
Waterscape in Southeastern Anatolia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 24
(2): 187–213. DOI: 10.1068/d03k

Citations of this work should use the final version as noted above
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Table of Contents
SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... 2
I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 3
II CHANGING WATERSCAPES, SHIFTING SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES ......................... 4
2.1. Changing uses of water: landlessness, livelihoods, and ethnicity ......................... 6
2.2. Management of water: water user groups and knowledge ................................. 10
III. HOW GENDER MATTERS FOR IRRIGATION ........................................................ 11
3.1 . The new labor economy: bride price .................................................................. 12
3.2 Increased market reliance ................................................................................... 16
IV HOW IRRIGATION MATTERS FOR GENDER ........................................................ 18
V. CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 25
Aknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 28
ENDNOTES .................................................................................................................. 28
Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 33

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SUMMARY
Most theorists understand gender geographies as highly differentiated and shifting, in terms of
both time and space. If gender is historically and geographically contingent then the analysis of
gender should be attentive to the particular conditions that materialize the very idea of gender,
giving it the appearance of being fixed and natural. The physical landscape, or waterscape in
the case of southeastern Turkey, is potentially central to the ways that gender is invoked and
lived in particular settings, with important effects. Using case-study work on irrigation-related
changes in southeastern Turkey, I consider gender in relation to livelihoods and work practices,
landholdings, and ethnicity revealing that, in addition to conditioning differential outcomes for
residents of the plain, these categories of social difference are themselves fundamentally
renegotiated and recast in relation to waterscape change. I argue that explicit consideration of
environmental conditions and practices is central to understanding the operation of gender in
certain contexts, as well as to understanding the lived experiences of women and men,
providing insights for gender theory and politics.

Note: The information used in this paper is based primarily on fieldwork conducted in 2001. Theresearch involved

government interviews and document review, open-ended interviews with farmersin the province of Şanl|urfa, and a

survey of 125 households of the Harran plain conductedcooperatively with Professor Zuhal Karahan Kara of Harran

University. Although KarahanKara helped to administer the survey, she does not necessarily agree with the analysis

presentedhere and in no way should be considered responsible for the content of this paper

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I INTRODUCTION
A number of researchers have demonstrated that gender is critical for access to, use of,
and management of resources (for example, Rocheleau et al, 1996; Schroeder, 1999),
with implications for social status, household conflict, livelihoods, and well-being (see
Agarwal, 1988; Carney, 1996; Carney and Watts, 1991). Among other issues, these
works, as well as other detailed examinations from a variety of contexts have revealed
the gender-differentiated effects of environmental changes, as well as the ways that
household, conjugal, or gender relations may be renegotiated in light of changing
environmental resource conditions or uses.
Evidence from southeastern Turkey similarly suggests that gender is central to
differentiating outcomes of water-related changes for residents. The emphasis on
gender in relation to nature-society relations developed in this paper builds on insights
from these and other works, but also extends these discussions. Drawing on the case of
large-scale developmental and environmental change in upper Mesopotamia, I argue
that not only is gender central to conditioning resource access, management, or
knowledges but, in turn, environmental considerations and outcomes are critical to
conditioning the operations and understandings of gender. Other theorists have
indicated that social interactions may shift in relation to environmental changes in
important ways (for example, Carney, 1996; Katz, 1991; Schroeder, 1999). I endeavor
here to detail similar linkages in the Turkish context, arguing that altered economies,
labor practices, crops, and environmental conditions associated with the changing
waterscape of the upper Tigris - Euphrates basin force renegotiations of men’s and
women’s status and well-being(1) Extending these insights, I further argue that irrigation
practices and differential water-resource geographies become central to defining and
consolidating the very terms of difference in the region, be they associations with men
and women, Kurd and Arab, or landed and landless.
The theorization engaged here favors an understanding of gender as the practices and
processes through which notions of sex difference come to appear as natural and
stable, though they are iteratively (re)produced and constantly shifting (Butler, 1993).
This approach differs substantially from treatments which take gender to be defined as
social relations that govern men’s and women’s differentiated knowledges of, or
experiences of, environments (for example, Rocheleau et al, 1996). In the case of large-
scale waterscape change in southeastern Turkey, emergent irrigation ecologies and
economies do result in differentiated outcomes for residents, but, as I detail here, these
changes also serve to define and consolidate the very terms and parameters of social
difference. Another dimension of the theorization of gender enlivened here relates to
intersectionality. In the case of rural southeastern Turkey, gender, landholdings,
ethnicity, and livelihoods are all interlinked processes of social difference and inequality
that hold relevance for the social and political dimensions of water-related changes.
Thus, although the analysis is clearly informed by critical work on gender, I seek to
avoid privileging gender differences over other important inequalities. As such, I aim to
contribute to a growing body of work that explicitly connects sex - gender to other
processes and inequalities.
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In section 2 I introduce the dynamic setting of socioenvironmental change in the Harran
plain of southeastern Turkey with particular attention to issues of landlessness,
livelihoods, and ethnicity as critical factors that mediate differentiated effects of irrigation
for residents of the plain. Attention to these issues helps to situate gender in relation to
other critical social inequalities. In section 3 a discussion of changing labor demands of
the new irrigated economy, related effects on the market for brides, and increased
market reliance delineates ways that men and women are differentially situated with
respect to ongoing environmental changes. This discussion provides evidence that
gender is not only historically and geographically variable, but linked to specific
practices and environmental conditions at different times and spaces. In section 4, I
consider these results in conversation with theorizations of gender, demonstrating that
gender is not only central for delineating differentiated outcomes of environmental
changes, but also itself an effect of such changes. Tracing shifting associations and
identities in relation to waterscape change, I consider both why gender matters for
irrigation and changing waterscapes, and how, through the renegotiation of nature -
society relations, gender comes to matter at all.
II CHANGING WATERSCAPES, SHIFTING SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES
In the mid-1980s the Turkish government embarked on an aggressive development
scheme seeking to utilize water resources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers more
effectively. Over the past few decades the state-led Southeastern Anatolia Project
(GAP)(2) has evolved into what planners call an ‘integrated regional-development
project’, including a diverse set of programs designed to maximize water efficiencies,
promote economic development, and further social equity goals. In the most recent
iterations of the project, extensive waterscape changes associated with the damming
and diversion of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have been recast as pivotal
transformations that will eventually bring the Southeastern Anatolia region (figure 1)
more in line developmentally with the rest of Turkey (Çarkoğlu and Eder, 1998; Harris,
2002). As it is one of the least economically developed regions of the country, and
home to significant segments of Turkey’s minority Kurdish and Arabicspeaking
populations, the Southeastern Anatolia region has long frustrated statist ideals of a
modern, developed, and unified Turkey. The transformation of water - society relations
through massive damming and water transfers, therefore, should be understood as a
means not only to realize the hydro-economic development potential of southeast
Turkey, but also to transform the social geography of the region – often characterized
as ‘backward’, overly religious, and underdeveloped with respect to both water potential
and social ideals.
With the suite of changes associated with the state-led GAP project, the physical and
social geography of southeastern Turkey is undergoing rapid and extensive transition;
many villages have been inundated to accommodate large dams, while other nearby
villages adjust to newly irrigated agricultural landscapes, most evident by the
predominance of cotton production. The Harran plain, southeast of the city of Şanl|urfa
and extending approximately 60 km to the border with Syria (figure 2, over), is one of
the first areas to experience state delivery of irrigation, representing approximately 10%
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of the total of nearly 1.7 million ha that are eventually expected to receive agricultural
water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Members of Turkey’s Arabicspeaking and
Kurdish-speaking minority communities inhabit the Harran plain: with estimates of
approximately 80% of villagers in the plain speaking Arabic as a natal language, and the
remaining 20% of villagers being primarily Kurdish speaking.(3)

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Prior to the state delivery of irrigation water from the Atatürk reservoir to the Harran
plain beginning in 1995, only a limited number of farmers had access to irrigation by
pumping groundwater. The predominant crops before widespread canalet (4) irrigation
were wheat, barley, and lentils – crops well suited to the arid conditions and intense
heat of the plain. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out in 2001, it is clear that, after
nearly a decade of canalet irrigation, residents of the plain have witnessed a wholesale
transition of livelihoods, crops, and material conditions. In the following sections I trace
these changes, focusing on changing water uses and water management as daily
practices that are important to the rearticulation and maintenance of a suite of social
inequalities and notions of difference, including gender.

2.1. Changing uses of water: landlessness, livelihoods, and ethnicity
Less than a decade after the arrival of irrigation, over 80% of the Harran plain is now
dedicated to cotton production. This number is shocking in light of the fact that cotton
constituted approximately 2.5% of the earlier cropping pattern for the Southeastern
Anatolia region on the whole, and planners estimated that cotton would eventually
constitute approximately 25% of the irrigated crop pattern (GAP Regional Development
Administration, Ankara, 1998, http://www.gap.gov.tr).(5) This new use of water –
intensive irrigation to support cotton as a predominant crop(6) is one of the most
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significant changes for the social and physical geography of the region. Landlessness,
livelihoods, and emerging intraregional disparities are all key parameters of social
difference that are being actively renegotiated in relation to these new crops and
irrigation uses.
Landlessness is a particularly acute problem in southeast Turkey. In the Harran plain
current estimates of landlessness are approximately 35 - 40% of the population – for
example Ünver (1997) cites 1991 figures as 37% – with many landless farmers working
as sharecroppers on a 30% share basis. Few women have formal title to lands, and,
among those who do, most often they were designated in name only to avoid the
transfer of land titles during failed land-reform efforts of the 1970s or thereafter (for
example, a landowner may have transferred title to sisters or daughters to avoid having
to revert lands above a designated allowable amount).(7) Thus, commonly cited
landlessness figures fail to account for the fact that the disaggregation of men and
women would reveal rates of landlessness closer to 80% of the adult population.(8) This
is important to note for the later discussion of the participation of women in water user
groups,(9) given that formal participation is generally limited to those with formal land
title.
Based on extensive interviews with men and women in the plain, landowners appear to
have reaped significant benefits with irrigation. Many landowners note income increases
that have enabled the purchase of new cars, cell phones, or tractors. By contrast, those
without lands often note that they have been left behind. As Adile, a landless Kurdish
woman in her forties, laments ‘‘We were left more backward.’’ She continued to explain
that, since irrigation, those with land and money only want to buy gold, cars, and quarrel
over title to lands, adding ‘the difference between those who have lots of land today and
tomorrow will be clear when we all go to the same little grave when we die. We’ll all be
in the same sized place’ (interview 10 October 2001).(10) Adile’s comment reflects a
commonly expressed perception that, with the coming of irrigation, rich farmers have
benefited disproportionately, leaving a larger relative gulf with poorer and landless
farmers. Similar sentiments were expressed by many others, including a 29-year-old
Kurdish male who said: ‘‘It destroyed the people who were busy with animal husbandry.
But it profited those who had land a lot, and it made those who have land to be able to
have some savings’’ (Harris and Karahan Kara, 2001, survey A11). With the rising land
prices associated with irrigation, and the continued inability of landless farmers to
access credit, purchasing lands appears increasingly out of reach for many.
The growing divide between landed and landless farmers is further reinforced by the
fact that, with cotton production, certain supplemental means of income generation are
less available. In recent years, animal husbandry, a livelihood that has long provided an
important source of income for villagers, has experienced a drastic decline with herd
sizes currently being a fraction of what they were in previous decades.(11) Prior to
irrigation, animals could be herded on wheat and barley fields after harvest. Now, with
altered cropping seasonalities and the intensities associated with irrigation, grazing land
is less available. Women in families engaging in animal husbandry would often sell
cheese, yogurt, or wool from animals to earn extra income for their families. Further,
many of the subsistence needs of families could be met by growing wheat, barley, or
lentils, and by using meat, yogurt, and wool from animal herds – through direct, and
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relatively equal, contributions of male and female members of households (with women
often charged with preparing milk, yogurt, barley, or wheat for bread making, and also
with drying wool to make bedding, among other tasks). With irrigated fields now
dedicated to cotton, landowners no longer allow grazing on their fields, and
sharecropping farmers have no choice about which crop will be grown. Consequently,
farmers no longer grow as many crops that they can consume directly, with wheat,
wool, and yogurt now increasingly bought in the market rather than produced at home.
A notable exception to this is small plots of vegetables – especially pepper, eggplant,
and tomatoes, now grown for home use – which are also generally considered to be
women’s labor.(12)
Perhaps the most striking results of our 2001 survey of the social changes
accompanying irrigation relate to animal-husbandry issues. Over 75% of respondents
noted that in general irrigation has been either ‘very positive’ or ‘positive’ for their
village. By contrast, when asked directly how they have experienced the loss of animals
in the plain, 85% of respondents said the loss has been ‘negative’ or ‘very negative’.
The primary reasons for the decline of animal herds cited by villagers include irrigation
and the associated loss of grazing lands. Several farmers noted that they would prefer
to grow wheat or other crops but are subject to the decisions of landowners. One 29-
year-old Kurdish male noted: ‘‘It was said that GAP is happiness, GAP is survival. But, it
was a like a suicide pill for those of us who are animal breeders, it prepared our end.
Right now [even thinking of it] GAP gives me discomfort’’ (Harris and Karahan Kara,
2001, survey A11). The loss of animal husbandry as a viable livelihood has proven to be
especially critical for landless families, as many of them now have only their labor to fall
back on, without the ability to use animals to provide for basic needs or to sell them in
times of difficulty. An elder farmer bemoaned: ‘‘In the past, we would not hesitate to
slaughter a sheep when guests came, but now ... we don’t have such an opportunity’’
(Harris and Karahan Kara, 2001, survey A31). In sum, the decline of animal husbandry
has meant the loss of prestige for many (for example, the inability to provide animal
meat to guests or to celebrate feasts), and also the loss of insurance against crop
failure or other difficult times (being able to sell off animals when needed). As such, this
‘new enclosure movement’ (Katz, 1998) associated with irrigation has severely curtailed
access to land resources and certain livelihood possibilities on the plain. As suggested,
the way that irrigation affects residents differently depending on their predominant
livelihood strategy also has a significant gender component, given that the relatively
equal male and female contributions to household needs with subsistence production
have now largely been supplanted by market-dependent irrigation crops, effectively
enhancing men’s relative contributions to the household economy (discussed below).
The changing livelihoods associated with irrigation have also meant other important
social changes. One benefit of irrigation delivery to the Harran plain is that residents no
longer have to travel to Adana or other areas to find work during the cotton-harvest
season. This is a change celebrated by the GAP administration and noted positively by
residents: ‘‘We now have a more positive attitude towards the state because before we
had to travel to places like Adana but right now we are working in our own fields directly
in front of our houses’’ (Harris and Karahan Kara, 2001, survey A3). In fact, workers
from elsewhere are now coming to the plain as seasonal laborers. Large work groups –
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often comprising young children and teenage girls, and commonly supervised by
several elder men – are working to harvest cotton on a per-kilo basis for periods of two
to three months in the fall.
Somewhat ironically, those who have not yet realized the benefits of irrigation directly
and are still forced to travel as seasonal migrants are primarily migrating from villages in
Adiyaman and other areas to the north, including from villages near to the Atatürk dam
reservoir, the source of irrigation waters. The fact that these nonirrigated areas are
predominantly Kurdish, and that the first irrigated areas are majority Arabic speaking,
highlights ethnic difference in relation to the new waterscape. This coincidence of
geography is noted by some of the Kurdish residents as evidence in their minds of
inequities propagated by state agents in terms of preference for the delivery of water.
As a group of Kurdish seasonal migrant workers sitting around a fire after a day of work
noted:
‘‘They gave Arabs the water first, but not to us, we are Kurdish. This is not life.
We will work to pick 100 decars of cotton. In Bozova, we also own 100 decars,
but since there is no irrigation, our pistachio and nut trees don’t give fruit soon
after we plant them so we came here to get some money. We don’t think we will
earn good money here either, but we are obligated to come pick cotton.’’ (field
notes based on research carried out in in the province of Şanl|urfa, May -
November 2001).
This and similar statements indicate that some Kurds feel left out of the benefits
associated with irrigated agriculture. As such, the spatially (and ethnically) differentiated
access to irrigation resources seems to be creating new tensions and intraregional
disparities. More centrally, these sentiments also reveal the ways that the changing
water-resource geography in part serves to redefine meanings and associations
attached to what it means to be ‘Kurdish’ or ‘Arab’ in this context. Kurdish speakers are
increasingly associated with seasonal workers (the numbers of Kurds in the plain swell
during the harvest season),(13) and ‘Arab’ is increasingly associated with farmers who
employ them and have privileged, or at a minimum more immediate, access to water.
Consequently, although one of the principal aims of GAP development is to increase
development in the Southeastern Anatolia region to overcome long-standing disparities
with the rest of the country, the emergent waterscape also appears to be creating new
intraregional disparities, enabling a differentiated social geography whereby some
Kurdish residents feel as though their interests have, once again, been overlooked.
Even within the plain there are stories of favoritism related to the timing of when villages
receive irrigation, which are sometimes told along ethnic lines. These are several of the
ways that terms of difference are taking on new meaning and importance in relation to
the new water-resource geography of the region. How residents understand
themselves, and each other – as Kurdish or Arab, or as landed or landless – is now
necessarily read through experiences of water-resource access, use, and change,
which are so important to new economies, livelihoods, and institutions in the region. Yet
another example relates to state-sponsored water user groups, which similarly create
new patterns of inequality in relation to access, prestige, and power associated with the
management of water as a critical resource.
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