The Bolivian government has recently shifted power and decision-making from the state to the municipality, including funding for and jurisdiction over water resource management. Proponents of decentralization assert that it has enhanced local participation and empowered rural regions by giving local representatives veto power over municipal budgets. Critics argue that decentralization has only reinforced the power of local elites, amplified inequalities, eroded broad-based national alliances, and dissolved the power of community-based agrarian unions. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist studies the new Lahuachama irrigation project in the municipality of Totora, Cochabamba, where eleven communities are united under an irrigation system. The study will analyze this new system and the changing patterns of water management, community organization, and local politics within and across community borders. Research will begin with 88 interviews with male and female participants conducted throughout the municipality to examine the social processes governing the new irrigation project, to assess the diversity of management practices found within the system. Then two representative communities will be studied for information about users and non-users of the irrigation system. This second phase of research will involve participant observation, the collection of oral histories from key informants, and interviews from 100 households. Broader impacts: In addition to furthering the education of a doctorial student, this research will provide a richer understanding of the changing nature of peasant community organization and water resource use. By examining the local effects of administrative decentralization on rural Bolivian community members and their management of water resources, this research will inform future policy and empower rural agrarian communities.
