Living Institutions: Sharing and Sanctioning Water among Pastoralists in Namibia

Michael Schnegg and Theresa Linke

World Development, 2015, vol. 68, issue C, 205-214

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.

Keywords: water management; Namibia; institutions; social networks; sanctions; sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:68:y:2015:i:c:p:205-214

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.11.024

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