7. The emergence of a hybrid hydro-scape in northern Kunene

Abstract

This chapter shifts from land and boundaries to consider the management of water in Etosha-Kunene, and specifically the materiality of infrastructures linked to water resource management and its social-ecological implications. In north-western Namibia a unique “hydro-scape” has emerged. Before the 1950s, the area was characterised by the scarcity of permanent water places and sources. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, the then-ruling South African administration drilled hundreds of boreholes in the region as part of its apartheid “homeland” policy and “modernisation” impetus. Initially, local leaders and traditional authorities rejected the idea of water development through borehole drilling; many felt that once such a complex and expensive infrastructure was operational, the state was there to stay as the guarantor of water infrastructures providing the basic hydro-infrastructure for vast herds of livestock. Since 1990, the independent Namibian state continued the borehole-drilling program, especially as part of its drought-management approach. From the 1990s onwards, responsibility for maintaining the above-ground infrastructure of boreholes was transferred to local pastoral communities. Nonetheless, the state once again expanded its reach as material water infrastructures opened the door for national and global governance regimes which increasingly permeated communities, even as the state began to “withdraw” through community-based management policies. The result is a dynamic bricolage of institutions shaped by different practices, power relations, norms, and values. Nowadays, local communities reliably maintain water supply, but not always on an equitable basis for all users.