The Struggle for Water in Peru: Comedy and Tragedy in the Andean Commons (review)

Early on, the author expresses disenchantment with the theoretical excesses of "interpretive anthropology" which in effect destroy the discipline. He sets out to be as objective and scientific as possible. "I intend to disappear sometimes from the scene," he writes (p. x). Reading this rewritten doctoral dissertation, one discovers that the key word in that proclamation is "sometimes." The text is frequently and extensively interpretive, as though the author placed one foot in the scientific tradition and one in the interpretive current. Moreover, Trawick deliberately seeks to "eventalize" (a Michel Foucault term) the local historical process.

In the scientific mode, this analysis compares three districts within the same Peruvian province of La Unión. Inferentially reconstructing local history, the author classifies Huaynacotas as an indigenous community, Pampamarca as a community colonized by Spaniards, and Cotahuasi as a hacienda district. Each district manages water irrigation differently than the others. Much of the author's reconstruction of the history, which is to say the causes, of divergences is plausible if not verifiable.

The author spent a relatively long time collecting data, especially oral history provided by paid narrators, most of whom resided in Cotahuasi. Trawick spent only a few weeks in Pampamarca and in Huaynacotas before he fled from Shining Path's impending intrusion into the Cotahuasi Valley. When he returned to Peru, he interviewed mostly migrants and visitors to the city of Arequipa (a very pleasant place to conduct research). To Trawick's scholarly credit, he did when possible observe events and activities by participating in them. He also found pertinent historical documents that strengthened his ethnohistorical analysis.

This volume includes an evaluation of the agrarian reform program initiated in 1969 by the military regime of General Juan Velasco Alvarado. The verdict? The program moved land and water from the Spanish elite toward indigenous peasants as long as Velasco held power. Even afterwards, the local elite was unable to return to the status quo ante.

In the course of his discussion of agrarian reform, Trawick generalizes from his small sample of communities and landholdings that use irrigators to the nation. The reliability of such generalization is dubious, inasmuch as only one estate in the valley studied was large enough to require redistribution. The author has no experience with latifundium, the primary target of the 1969 military government program. Indeed, the word does not even appear in the volume's index.

The word "coca" appears but once in the index; that inevitably raises doubts as to the accuracy of the author's reconstructions, given how intertwined coca has been with farm labor in the Andes since at least the time of the Inca. Religion is conspicuously ignored, save for passing references to the local cargo systems ("which I cannot discuss here" [p. 315]) as paths to prestige and influence.

Additional doubts must be expressed as to whether the author achieved a scientifically trustworthy presentation. In the secular sphere, the author mentions toward the end of the volume a cooperative store without considering it in his analysis. At the shovel-handle level of irrigating, the author repeatedly refers to filtration in leaky canals, yet fails to mention where that recharge to an extremely steep aquifer goes. It cannot simply disappear. Trawick presents a long, detailed discussion of food-crop terrace versus alfalfa, open-slope irrigation. The latter appears to waste water. He considers alfalfa and its non-terrace irrigation as Spanish introductions closely tied to the pack animal carrying trade. The author never mentions, however, that furrows on contours and terraces trap cold air descending the mountain slopes at night, to the detriment of tender crops. Open-slope irrigation allows cold air to descend without impediment or harm to plants. This book is useful only if consulted with great...