Diverting the Flow

Gender Equity and Water in South Asia

Margreet Zwarteveen, Sara Ahmed, Suman Rimal Gautam, Margreet Zwarteveen, Sara Ahmed, Suman Rimal Gautam

• Publisher: Zubaan Books
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9789383074150
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Across the South Asian region, water determines livelihoods and in some cases even survival. However, water also creates exclusions. Access to water, and its social organisation, are intimately tied up with power relations. This book provides an overview of gender, equity and water issues relevant to South Asia. The essays empirically illustrate and theoretically argue how gender intersects with other axes of social difference such as class, caste, ethnicity, age and religion to shape water access, use and management practices. Divided into six thematic sections, each of which starts with an introduction of relevant concepts, debates and theories, the book looks at laws and rights, policies, technologies and intervention strategies. In all, the book clearly shows how understanding and changing the use, distribution and management of water is conditional upon understanding and accommodating gender relations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• SECTION 1: UNDERSTANDING GENDER AND WATER LINKAGES
• 1. Gender and Water in South Asia: Revisiting Perspectives, Policies and Practice
• 2. Understanding Gendered Agency in Water Governance
• SECTION 2: GENDER, WATER LAWS AND POLICIES
• 3. Gender, Water Laws and Policies: An Introduction
• 4. Decentralising or Marginalising Women: Gender Relations and Sector Reforms in India
• 5. The Right to Water in Different Discourses
• 6. Water Rights and Gender Rights: The Sri Lanka Experience
• SECTION 3: GENDER, WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
• 7. Gender, Water Supply and Sanitation: An Introduction
• 8. Sanitation for the Urban Poor: Gender Matters
• 9. Reducing a Community's Water and Sanitation Burden: Insights from Maharashtra
• 10. Gendered Waters, Poisoned Wells: Political Ecology of the Arsenic Crisis in Bangladesh
• 11. Modern Water for Modern Women: Questioning the Relationship between Gender, Empowerment and Participation
• SECTION 4: GENDER, WATER AND AGRARIAN CHANGE
• 12. Gender, Water and Agrarian Change: An Introduction
• 13. Groundwater Vending and Appropriation of Women's Labour: Gender, Water Scarcity and Agrarian Change in a Gujarati Village, India
• 14. Highlighting the User in Waste Water Irrigation Research: Gender, Class and Caste Dynamics of Livelihoods near Hyderabad, India
• SECTION 5: GENDER AND WATER TECHNOLOGIES
• 15. Gender and Water Technologies: An Introduction
• 16. Farming Women and Irrigation Technology: Cases from Nepal
• 17. Gender and Water Technologies: Linking the Variables in Arsenic and Fluoride Mitigation
• 18. Perspectives on Gender and Large Dams
• 19. Large Water Control Mechanisms, and Women and Men: Gender Impacts of the Damodar Valley Corporation, India
• SECTION 6: STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS GENDERED WATER CONCERNS
• 20. Strategies to Address Gendered Water Concerns: An Introduction
• 21. Improving Processes of Natural Resources Management at the Grassroots: The Case of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
• 22. Thinking and Acting on Gender Issues: The Interface of Policy, Culture and Identity
• 23. Adopting a Gender Approach in a Water and Sanitation Project: Case of the 4WS Project in Coastal Communities in South Asia
• Glossary
• Notes on Contributors