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    Woman Waterkeeper? Women’s Troubled Participation in Water Resource Management


    Asaba, Richard B. and Fagan, Honor (2015) Woman Waterkeeper? Women’s Troubled Participation in Water Resource Management. In: Water and Development: Good Governance after Neoliberalism. Zed Books, pp. 152-172. ISBN 9781783604937

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    Abstract

    Despite women’s recognised responsibility as domestic water keepers, albeit a traditional and culturally and politically constructed role, the fact remains that they have been underrepresented and constrained in their participation in the governance of water resources. However, their traditional responsibility as water keepers, given their daily work in accessing water for domestic use, has increasingly been seen by policy-makers as a rationale for their inclusion in community management water schemes. This has led to legislation being enacted to ensure their numerical participation in new public management and governance frameworks for Community Based Management Systems (CBMS) in rural water supply. This chapter looks at the dynamics at play in the expanded role of women, from domestic water-keeper to community water-keeper, in one particular Ugandan rural locale where the legislation advocates equal participation in community water management. The subtleties and highs and lows of the fluctuating process of their inclusion are traced in the words and stories of men and women from fifteen villages in a Ugandan parish where this study took place. The outcomes of the study point to the fact that women’s participation in management of water resources remains peripheral and is deeply marked by patriarchal domestic structures.
    Item Type: Book Section
    Additional Information: This is the postprint version of the published chapter.
    Keywords: governance; water resources; water resource management; women; Community Based Management Systems; water supply;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
    Item ID: 6607
    Depositing User: Honor Fagan
    Date Deposited: 24 Nov 2015 13:23
    Journal or Publication Title: Water and Development - Good Governance after Neoliberalism
    Publisher: Zed Books
    Refereed: Yes
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/6607
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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