Gendered Social Institutions and the Management of Underground Irrigation Water Resources in a Bangladeshi Village

This study examines the influences of gendered social institutions on the formational organizational operational and rule making processes of irrigation water user groups (WUGs) in Dharmahata an agrarian village in northwest Bangladesh. It argues that irrigation management builds on and in turn through the interplay of class and purdah norms reinforces existing gendered institutions in households and communities. The article shows that irrigation governance in Dharmahata is exclusively a domain of men and in particular of rich men farmers. Gender norms constrain women from joining field-based agricultural/irrigation activities although a few poor women are able to transgress such traditional gender norms by working on the fields. Poor women are also being mobilized for irrigation canal cleaning and maintenance operations as informal laborers. Despite this they are not members of WUGs. Gender norms constrain women from their rights to irrigation institutions memberships as well as their active participation in the decision making processes of WUGs. (authors)