Living Institutions: Sharing and Sanctioning Water among Pastoralists in Namibia

Abstract

Sanctions are often considered an important component of successful resource management. To govern water usage, pastoral communities in Namibia have specific sanctions at their disposal and yet these are almost never applied. Interestingly, this does not lead to a breakdown in water supply. To understand collective action in small communities it is important to take into account that people share multiple resources. Combining ethnography and network analysis we reveal that people cannot separate the sharing of water from the sharing of ancestries, food, and work. This discourages the application of formal sanctions while opening other means of maintaining institutional regimes.

Water sharing, reciprocity, and need: A comparative study of interhousehold water transfers in sub‐Saharan Africa

“…First, although we made an effort to capture multiplexity, our models did not include complex operationalizations of multiplex ties (e.g., kin who are also neighbors who are also coreligionists). More and better‐defined research on multiplexity in water sharing is needed (see Schnegg and Linke for guidance here). For example, we need to better understand how kinship distance and household distance both matter.…”

“…From research in behavioral ecology on food sharing in subsistence societies, we can posit, for example, that givers and receivers may set up a “tit‐for‐tat” reciprocal arrangement in which one provides water to the other at one time in exchange for a return gift at some point in the future (Axelrod ; Trivers ). In Namibia, for example, Schnegg and Linke () found that people maintain complex networks that include noncommensurate exchanges of food and other goods, including water. But not all household trading partners are equal, and a further basic expectation drawn from the food sharing literature would be that kin (especially genetic kin) would be favored in transfers over affines (relatives by marriage), and both would be favored over friends and neighbors (Hamilton , as discussed in Gurven on kin; see also Hruschka ).…”

Congruence of appropriation and provision in collective water provision in Central Namibia

“…But maybe the loose social relations are also a chance. Schnegg and Linke (2015) show that social networks can actually hamper the effectiveness of water management institutions. The specific context also raises the question whether institutions indeed have to be always formalised.…”

Travelling models of participation: Global ideas and local translations of water management in Namibia

“…Although Ostrom has repeatedly called for caution in generally applying these principles to specific cases, the proposed explanations have been taken as solutions to craft institutions of resource governance in the global South (Ostrom 2005(Ostrom , 2009Saunders 2010). In Namibia's water management manuals, all eight principles find corresponding regulations (Linke 2015;Schnegg and Linke 2015;Schnegg 2016a;.…”