American
Institute for Maghrib Studies, 1997 Grants
Program
Application for
"Full Research Grant" for Dissertation Fieldwork in
Tunisia
Submitted
by: Andrew W. Wolfe, Ph.D. Student,
Binghamton University
I. CURRICULUM
VITAE
__________________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS:
#6
Baxter Street
Binghamton, NY
13905-1902
USA
Telephone: (607) 729-6972
E-Mail: br00777@binghamton.edu
DATE
OF BIRTH:
2/30/67
MARITAL
STATUS:
Married,
no children
EDUCATION:
M.A.
degree in Anthropology and current affiliation, Binghamton University (State University of
New York @ Binghamton), M.A. date: May 19, 1996
(GPA=3.93/A=4.0)
I
will reach the level of Ph.D. candidacy by October 1, 1997, the beginning of the
proposed research period.
Coursework:
development, economic anthropology, sociocultural theory, population and health,
ethnicity, feminist theory, and multilingualism
B.A.
degree (Anthropology concentration), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, completed on May 5, 1990 (GPA=3.40/A=4.0)
Coursework:
anthropology, natural resources, natural and physical
sciences
PROFESSIONAL
EXPERIENCE:
1996
(1/96-5/96)
Teaching Assistant for Introductory
Anthropology Courses at Binghamton
1997
(1/97-5/97)
University
* writing emphasis course
1995
(1/95-5/95)
Research Assistant, Institute for Development
Anthropology
* worked under Dr. Muneera Salem-Murdock on the relationship between
Islam and natural resources management
ACADEMIC
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Class
Honors, University of Michigan, May 1990
Dean's
List, University of Michigan, April 1988
OTHER
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:
Three
weeks of rapid appraisal in the
date-growing regions of Southern California, including an interview with one of
the premier date growers in the United States (January
1996)
Graduate
of the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective
Public Speaking and Human Relations (April 1988)
LANGUAGE
ABILITY: Arabic--3
semesters of instruction in Modern Standard Arabic and continuing instruction,
Binghamton University
I will be attending the Intensive Summer Course in Tunisian Arabic
offered by the Institut Bourbuiga des
Langues Vivantes (Tunis) during the month of July 1997
French--reading
proficiency, working verbal skills
Portuguese--2
academic years of instruction, University of Michigan
SELECTED
PAPERS:
Gender,
Sexuality and Islam
(unpublished paper in support of M.A.)
Development
Policy and Praxis in Oman
(unpublished paper in support of M.A.)
PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES:
Member,
American Anthropological Association,
1994-present
Member,
Society for Applied Anthropology,
1995-present, attended annual meeting in April 1996
Member,
Middle East Studies Association,
1996-present, attending annual meeting in November 1996
Member,
American Institute for Maghrib
Studies, 1997-
II.
APPLICANT'S REFEREES
Dr.
Michael M. Horowitz
Applicant's
Principal Advisor
Department of Anthropology
Binghamton University
Binghamton, NY
13902-6000
Dr.
Richard U. Moench
Department of Anthropology
Binghamton University
Binghamton, NY
13902-6000
Note:
The Letters of recommendation are included with the
application
III.
PROPOSAL: Institutions and Opportunities: The Relationship between Water User
Associations and Entrepreneurial Activity in Southern
Tunisia
Introduction
As the turn of the millennium nears, developing countries such as Tunisia
are looking to the agricultural sector to provide much needed export income
(Radwan, et al. 1991:90).
Increasing exports and integration with world markets have led to major
changes in rural agricultural regions.
How farming households of varying socioeconomic levels respond to these
changes, and the role that institutions play in these varied responses, is of
great importance to economic anthropology.
The anthropological tradition of long-term participant observation is
very appropriate for investigating such complex social processes.
Southern Tunisia is a case in point. Thanks to relatively plentiful
groundwater and access to European markets, Tunisia has become the world's
premier exporter of dates by value (Mekki 1994:28). This success, however, has led to a
dualistic agricultural system in two senses: 1) ancient gardens producing many
varieties of dates and modern gardens producing high value Deglat Nour (Kassah 1990:207-212); and
2) government-created communal irrigation systems fed by deep wells and a
proliferation of private wells outside of the communal system (Conforti, et al.
1994:24).
The communal irrigation systems are managed by government-created water user organizations (from here on
WUA) called Associations d'Intérêt
Collectif (AIC). The AIC
maintain the registration of garden ownership, upon which rights to water are
attached, and represent a spatial unit around which other productive activities
are organized (Conforti, et al. 1994:15).
The numerous private wells are the result of individual initiative and
are frequently located at the periphery of the oasis. Jean Bisson (1992:90-92, my translation)
reports that informal WUA have developed among private well owners in
Nefzaoua: "[they] are quick to organize themselves in
order to communally exploit these wells..."
The
Basic Objective and Hypotheses of the Study
The basic problem that emerges from the above discussion is the rapidly
changing and dualistic nature of Tunisian oases. Communal and private irrigation, formal
and informal associations, modern and ancient gardens, all exist in close
proximity. Given this complex
milieu, how are individuals--especially those of low socioeconomic status--able
to make strategic decisions which will benefit them both socially and
economically? In particular, what
positions and interests do small and medium-sized farming households have in
formal and informal WUA, and how do these WUA affect the decisions and
opportunities of these households?
The objective of this study
is to investigate: 1) formal and
informal WUA and the relationship between them; and 2) the differing interests and
opportunities that membership with these WUA entails for small and medium-sized
farming households. This will be
achieved by testing a guiding hypothesis which consists of the following: 1) that formal and informal WUA exist
within oases that contain both communal and private-well irrigation; 2) that these WUA open up opportunities
for individuals by lowering transaction costs through providing information and
services; and 3) that the ability of individuals to respond to such
opportunities will vary considerably, both intra-household and inter-household,
due to differences in resources and interests. The null hypothesis is that there are no
informal WUA, and formal WUA like the AIC don't provide opportunities for small
and medium-sized farming households.
The following research
questions will be investigated, and the unit of analysis will be small to
medium-sized farming households: Do
formal and/or informal WUA exist among private well users? If so, what is their relationship to the
AIC? What information and services
are provided by the WUA? What are
the responsibilities of "members" of the WUA? What are the composition and internal
dynamics of small to medium-sized farming households? What are the interests of the household
in participating with WUA? What are
the inter-household and intra-household differences in resources and interests
in WUA? What access do the
households have to water? (Access
can mean several things: ownership
of a well, ownership of land with water rights, or the ability to buy or rent
such rights.) How does involvement
with WUA improve the social and/or economic position of the household, or
various household members? What
opportunities does participation with the WUA open up, and for
whom?
Theoretical
Context and Relationship to Previous Work
This study will be relevant to current discussions in anthropology
centered around the concepts of "practice" and "agency" (Bourdieu 1977, Giddens
1979), which have sought to incorporate a more theoretical discussion of
individual action into a discipline which has been dominated by teleological and
constraining concepts such as "social structure" and "cultural evolution". These discussions have been related to
development issues by Michael Horowitz (1986,1994), who has built upon the
empirical tradition of Fredrik Barth (1966,1972), the political economy of
Claude Meillassoux (1981), and the "political ecology" perspective first
introduced by Eric Wolf (1956).
James Acheson (1994:19) has related these discussions to economics by
pointing out that opportunities for individuals are dependent upon the development of institutions, and not
just technological advance. E.
Walter Coward echoes this by pointing out that formal institutions and informal
social organization are as much part of an irrigation system as technology
(1991:48-51). Irrigation
"institutions"--considered here as formal or informal WUA--have been the focus
of a rich literature, most of which has investigated large-scale and river-fed
canal irrigation in the major river basins of Africa and Asia (Nile, Indus,
Ganges, etc., see Chaudhry and Young 1990). These multi-level canal systems,
however, are quite distinct from most groundwater systems which are much smaller
and highly sensitive to environmental sustainability. Comparatively little research has been
done on such systems and WUA associated with them (for some exceptions see: Wilkinson 1977, Shah 1993, and Chambers
1980). A notable exception is the
Central Tunisia Potable Water Institutions Project carried out by USAID/Tunis and the Institute for Development Anthropology
(Hopkins 1990, Salem-Murdock 1990).
In this project, "entrepreneurial spinoffs" such as weaving organizations
and "Women's Interest Groups" followed the creation WUA for the express purpose
of providing potable water (Grimm and Redjeb 1991:53-56). These are precisely the kind of
"opportunities" this study will be concerned with. In this sense, an important contribution
will be made to this successful research in Central
Tunisia.
Detailed social research focusing on irrigation in southern Tunisia is
limited. Kilani (1986) provides an
historical description of how state intervention has effected irrigation in
Gafsa, and Jusserand (1994) describes the communal system in the oasis of Nefta
(Jérid). Development-oriented research has been
carried out in the Jérid by several French researchers associated with the Groupe de Recherche et d'Information pour le
Développement de l'Agriculture d'Oasis (GRIDAO) in Montpellier, France (e.g.
Conforti, et. al. 1994). The
Nefzaoua region has been studied by M. Sghaier (1988,1994) who is associated
with the Institut des Régions Arides
(IRA) in Médenine, Tunisie. His
research, based on a series of questionnaires, has provided baseline data
covering many socio-economic topics.
This project will be carried out in the oasis of Degache, which is
located on the north shore of the Chott
El Jérid in the Tozeur region of southern Tunisia. It is a large and ancient oasis which
has adapted very well to the export of Deglat Nour dates. In addition, it has a large number of
private wells and 80-90% of the landowners own less than 2 hectares (Conforti
1994:55-56).
Methodology
The study will be 9 months in duration and begin on October 1, 1997. The research will consist of two
phases. The first phase will last 2
months and consist of an initial oasis-level survey. It will utilize short formal interviews,
simple mapping, and some participant observation. It will collect the following data: the location of private wells, the
workings of the communal irrigation system and the AIC, the location of small
and medium-sized households, and most importantly, the existence or nonexistence
of informal WUA among private well users (testing the first part of the guiding
hypothesis). This phase will
culminate in the selection of a zone of research for the final phase. This zone will consist of the section of
the oasis in which: 1) small to medium-sized farming households and private
wells are both common; 2) the AIC is represented; and 3) informal WUA exist
among private well owners.
The second phase will last 7 months, and will focus on testing the
guiding hypothesis by addressing research questions listed above. It will consist of a case study in which
5 small to medium sized farming households will be chosen via "purposive
sampling" for detailed participant observation research, which will include
semi-structured and unstructured interviews and the development of rapport with
several key informants. The two
overriding goals are: 1) to
determine if formal and informal WUA open up opportunities for individuals; and
2) to describe the variability of individual responses to these opportunities
based on differences in resources and interests. The participation aspect of this phase
is critical, because it will enable the researcher to gain access to the more
informal types of institutional life.
The development of close relationships will facilitate reaching the goal
of this study: to understand
individual actions within the context of formal and informal institutional life.
Due to the nature of this research, strict confidentially of informants
and specific farming households will be maintained.
During the month of July, 1997, the applicant will be in Tunisia studying
the Tunisian dialect of Arabic at the Institut Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes,
and setting up preliminary contacts at the research site. In addition, the project has been
reviewed by Dr. Ridha Boukraa, sociology professor at the University of
Tunis. He is familiar with the type
of research proposed above, and has agreed to provide some oversight for the
research. A letter from Dr. Boukraa
has been included with the application.
Upon completion, the results will be communicated at any relevant
regional conferences or symposia.
The data and results will form the basis for a Ph.D. dissertation in
sociocultural anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton,
NY, USA.
References
Cited
Acheson,
James M.
1994 Welcome to Nobel Country: A
Review of Institutional Economics. In
Anthropology and Institutional Economics. James Acheson, ed. Lanham: University
Press of America. Pp. 3-42.
Barth,
Fredrik
1966 Models of Social
Organization. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Occasional Paper #23.
1972 Introduction. In The Role of the Entrepreneur in
Social Change in Northern Norway. Fredrik Barth, ed. Bergen:
Universitetsforlaget. Pp. 5-18.
Bisson,
Jean
1992 Le Sahara dans le
développement des Etats maghrébins. II. Monde Arabe Maghreb-Machrek.
135:79-106.
Bourdieu,
Pierre
1977 Outline of A Theory of
Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Chambers,
Robert
1980 Basic Concepts in the
Organization of Irrigation. In
Irrigation and Agricultural Development in Asia. E. Walter Coward, ed. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press. Pp. 28-50.
Chaudhry,
Muhammad Aslam and Robert A. Young
1990 Economic Impacts of
Alternative Irrigation Water Allocation Institutions: Pakistan's Warabandi
System. In Social, Economic, and
Institutional Issues in Third World Irrigation Management. R.K. Sampath and
Robert A. Young, eds. Boulder: Westview. Pp. 395-410.
Conforti,
Jacques, et al.
1994 Zonage des oasis du Jérid.
Montpellier: GRIDAO.
Coward,
E. Walter, Jr.
1991 Planning Technical and Social
Change in Irrigated Areas. In Putting
People First. Michael Cernea, eds. Oxford University Press. Pp.
46-72.
Giddens,
Anthony
1979 Central Problems in Social
Theory. University of California Press.
Grimm,
Curt and Mohamed Salah Redjeb
1991 Cost-Benefit Analysis of
Tunisian Rural Water User Association Creation and Support. Working Paper No.
86. Binghamton, NY: Institute for Development
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Hopkins,
Nicholas
1990 Water-User Associations in
Rural Central Tunisia. In
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Salem-Murdock and Michael Horowitz, eds. Boulder: Westview. Pp.
74-94.
Horowitz,
Michael M.
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in Pastoral Livestock Development. In
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in the Mid-1990s. Development Anthropology Network.
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Jusserand,
Yves
1994 Projet d'utilisation de l'eau
artésienne à Nefta. In Agriculture
Oasienne: quelles recherches? Abdelmajid Rhouma and Jean-Philippe Tonneau, eds.
Montpellier: GRIDAO. Pp. 71-84.
Kassah,
Abdelfettah
1990 Le secteur dattier en
Tunisie. Revue Tunisienne de Géographie. 18:201-235.
Kilani,
Mondher
1986 L'Influence de l'État dans la
transformation du système hydraulique du groupe d'oasis de Gafsa.
Genève-Afrique. 24(2):7-46.
Mekki,
M. Hamza
1994 Le palmier-dattier en Tunisie
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recherches? Abdelmajid Rhouma and Jean-Philippe Tonneau, eds. Montpellier:
GRIDAO. Pg. 21-42.
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Claude
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Samir, Vail Jamal, and Ajit Ghose
1991 Tunisia: Rural Labour and
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Muneera
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Boulder: Westview Press. Pp. 95-125.
Sghaier,
M.
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Tonneau, eds. Montpellier: GRIDAO. Pp. 85-99.
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John C.
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IV.
PROPOSED ITINERARY
October
1, 1997: New York, NY
-- London, UK -- Tunis, Tunisia
July
1, 1998: Tunis, Tunisia
-- London, UK -- New York, NY