This master thesis explores and explains the social meaning of water in the village of Ašbarū
in Morocco, focusing in particular on some of the traditional and modern technological,
infrastructural and other processes and methods of distribution of underground (khottara)
and surface (seguia) water resources. It draws on classic anthropological fieldwork in the
aforementioned village and focuses on the condition of makinch alma' (no water) that the
inhabitants of the village of Ašbarū confront in their daily lives, identifying it as a
fundamental condition that significantly shapes both their private and collective lives in the
village. In this regard, I draw on two important concepts; hydrosociality, which emphasises
that water, water bodies and human beings or society are interdependent and co-constitutive;
and the hydrosocial cycle, which intertwines water with its associated technology,
infrastructure and society. Through the analysis of ethnographic material obtained through
participant observation and interviews I seek to reveal some of the social aspects and
meanings of underground and surface water sources and pathways that permeate systems of
kinship, land inheritance, marriage, infrastructural and other social arrangements for water
distribution, spiritual purification, religious significance, and other spatial and temporal
dimensions of water. This discussion explains how underground and surface water sources
and pathways are an integral and fundamentally vital part of the village of Ašbarū and the
wider surrounding area. It is for this reason that the scarcity of water in the above-mentioned
underground and surface sources and pathways, or the situation of makinch alma' (no water),
heralds unprecedented changes in the village, which, due to the presence of transnational
corporations encroaching on water resources in the area, as well as the so-called hydro-orientalisms,
could lead to an even greater scarcity of underground and surface resources,
and thus bring negative consequences for the local community and the wider environment
in general.
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