Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-r7xzm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T11:04:08.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Colonial and Contemporary Ideologies of ‘Community Management’: The Case of Tank Irrigation Development in South India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1999

David Mosse
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Abstract

This is an essay in the sociology of knowledge. It aims to demonstrate, firstly, how development institutions construct rural society in terms of organizational imperatives, and secondly, how these ‘constructions’ come to be underpinned by social theory. The focus is on irrigation in south India and colonial and contemporary state policy initiatives to promote local institutions for the community management of decentralized resource systems. The essay presents the social and historical origin of an important and powerful set of contemporary policy ideas. The significance of this lies in the continuing misperception of local institutions of resource management, and in particular the systematic isolation of resource management from its particular social and historical context.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)