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Sophie Strauß

Ph.D. student (Scholarship holder 12/2008 - 11/2012)

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schnepel

Strategies in Water Rights Disputes. The resolution of water rights disputes in the legal plural context of Balinese paddy cultivation

In the focus of the research project are current water rights conflicts in the context of paddy cultivation in Bali (Indonesia). Especially in the South of the island, where mass tourism has been strongly developed, Balinese irrigation communities (subak) have to coordinate their utilization of water resources for paddy cultivation with various other commercial and non-commercial user sectors with a high consumption rate. The competition between the various stakeholders has led to overexploitation and a growing rate of crop failure in the course of the last 10 to 15 years, especially in the South of the island.

Competing user sectors for water are the subak communities, private households in both rural and urban areas, regional semi-state-owned water providers (Perusahaan Daerah Air Minum, PDAMs), tourism infrastructure (like restaurants, hotels with swimming pools and golf courses), private transnational water companies, the industry and the natural environment. At the core of the research are the interactions between members of the different user groups and their negotiation activities as well as their mobilization of, and access to, different legal spheres which regulate the access to water, for instance subak laws as customary right (indon. adat), state law as the legal basis for licenses handed out to water companies and mega projects for tourism or local law as the basis for a relatively uncoordinated access to ground water by private households or small tourist facilities.

In a twelve-month ethnographic fieldwork the strategies of interaction, negotiation and dispute settlement of the actors shall be analyzed and their respective access to the different legal repertoires as a source of legitimising their water claims. All this is to be considered against the backdrop of the changes in the water sector since the introduction of the decentralization programme in Indonesia after 1998 and a new legislation in the water sector on the regional and national levels. It is the aim of the project to gain an understanding of the consequences that this new legal situation and the massive impacts of tourism and the private sector have had, and still have, on the conflict management and negotiations between the user sectors in their competition for the limited water resources. Especially the relationship between subak communities as institutions of adat-law and private households (both using water non-commercially) and sectors with commercial water exploitation (tourism, private companies) is at the centre of the research as well as the role that government authorities and other interest groups like NGOs have on the different levels of dispute settlement.

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Curriculum Vitae

Educational background

Activities, teaching and working experience

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Publications

Working Papers and presentations

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Languages

German (native speaker), Indonesian, English (fluent), Swedish (good), French (working knowledge), Latin (Latinum), Balinese, Spanish, Dutch (beginner)

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