Water-networks and the actor: the case of the Save River catchment, Zimbabwe

The Save river catchment in eastern Zimbabwe comprises a physical space in whichwater particles are somehow connected. In a physical sense the Save catchment istherefore a 'real' entity. Recently, with the promulgation of the new Water Act of 1998and its implementation started in 2000, the Save catchment also exists institutionally: atleast in the minds of some policy makers and some other actors. In this spatial expanse,many more realities are enacted: geographically, socially, culturally, economically, andpolitically. But these realities are highly diverse and fragmented.People have sought and still seek to combine in various ways different resources(natural, material, technological, human, legal, institutional, financial) as occurring inthe Save expanse (see e.g. Roder, 1965; Campbell et al., 1989), thus building networksin order to secure a livelihood. A water using system for agriculture, for instance,involves one or more farmers consciously combining water (rainfall, river water,groundwater) and land resources (soil particles, stones etc.) in a specific way. Such asystem only works if tightly linked to other material resources, such as crops, fertiliser,pumps, siphons, electricity lines, documents (e.g. title deeds, water rights), courtbuildings, and of course money and account statements, and with other, less tangibleresources such as unwritten rules, wisdom, knowledge and information flows. Thisnetwork also links human actors, both as an intended strategy (e.g. a farmer dealingwith an extension officer, a sales representative of a seed company, a Headman, etc.),but also unintentionally, since the water cycle itself links actors together (e.g. up- anddownstream irrigators).A water using system can therefore be understood as an actor-network (Law, 1994).