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Coping with Bureaucracy: Survival Strategies in Irrigated Agriculture
Author(s) -
Lees Susan H.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1986.88.3.02a00050
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , agriculture , irrigation , productivity , coping (psychology) , scale (ratio) , irrigated agriculture , business , agricultural economics , economic growth , economics , geography , political science , ecology , psychology , cartography , archaeology , psychiatry , politics , law , biology
Small‐scale family farming and centralized bureaucratic management are in many ways incompatible, yet the two are often combined in modern irrigation systems. Bureaucrats and farmers cope by means of “informal adjustments.” The kinds of informal adjustments made by farmers vary with their differential access to resources, particularly labor, despite minimal variation in access to land and water. The effects of bureaucratic control and associated informal adjustments are illustrated by reference to three large‐scale irrigation systems noteworthy for their high degree of centralization and for their success in achieving high productivity by family farm operators: the Israeli cooperative farming sector, the Gezira Scheme in Sudan, and the Mwea Scheme in Kenya.