Dire le droit local de l'eau : histoire orale et partage de l'eau dans la vallée des Aït Bou Guemez (Haut Atlas, Maroc)

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Riaux, Jeanne
Copyright Year	2011
Abstract	Narrating water rules and rights. Many studies have been conducted on the issue of local water rules and rights. In the North African studies, the two main subjects related to this issue are the legal pluralism and the differences between rules and practices. But on present days, studies are focusing on issues related to the public interventions on local irrigation systems, as institutional changes and revision of local water rights. Our contribution establishes links between these two research fields through the analysis of the way an irrigation community enounces the local water rights. This paper underlines the complexity of the systems of rights and explains their interweaving in the local history. In the Central High Atlas (Morocco), the Aït Bou Guemez people have a long background of collective water management. There, collective organization is based on rules locally and historically crafted. The origins of these rules, the water turn in particular, are told through two main “stories”. The first one is about the founding myths of villages around the discovery of a spring. Through this type of “story”, the Aït Bou Guemez people explain the origins of the stakeholders group and the “story” of water-sharing. The second kind of story describes the period of Pacification of the valley by the French Protectorate army and the origins of the water turn, resulting of an agreement obtained in a situation of conflicts. Thus, mythical time and historical time are used to make links between contemporary practices and the history of the valley, and to legitimate water-sharing rules in use.
Starting Page	166
Ending Page	181
Page Count	16
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://journals.openedition.org/tc/pdf/5659
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article