Material and inmaterial dimensions in the water landscape building in drylands

PASTOR, GABRIELA C.; TORRES, LAURA M.

Israel

Conferencia; Conference Deserts and Desertification - Challenges and Opportunities; 2006

"Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University and the

Conference Coordinators of the International Conference "Deserts and Desertification: Challenges and Opportunities, 2006."Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification – Annex IV nations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract Tangible and Intangible dimensions of water – landscape construction in drylands Gabriela Claudia PASTOR and Laura María TORRES, gpastor@lab.cricyt.edu.ar Suggested conference topic area: “Living in Drylands” The study submitted aims at giving an account of the progress achieved in the research on the construction of the cultural water landscape in drylands of the Argentine center-west.   The case study is the northeast of Mendoza province, an area inhabited by human groups self-defined as Huarpes, who have constructed their habitat in a territory marked by aridity, where they develop subsistence activities related to goat raising.  The work is oriented to showing some of the cultural peculiarities displayed by these groups. For doing so, it describes the cultural landscape built around the use of water resources for domestic use.  The hypothesis from which this study develops points out the existence of -at least- two basic dimensions associated with the use of water resources: a material dimension (technologies and devices for catchment and use of water resources) – and a symbolic dimension (water-related rituals) that interact in the formation of ethno-territories and manifest themselves in diverse ways in the cultural landscape. The analysis of the current scenario into which this cultural landscape is inserted is approached from the using of ethnography. For such purpose, the first part of the study provides a brief description of the cultural landscape in the area, and an account is given of the major ecological features of the site, as well as of the main economic and cultural traits of its human settlements. Afterwards, technologies and devices used for water resource supply and use are described and analyzed, to finally examine a ritual made by local people in times of water shortage: the “San Vicente Dance”.  Finally, it is concluded that the cultural landscape observed through its material and symbolic dimensions accounts for the “integrated and complex adaptive strategy” whereby local people have thus far been able to solve their social reproduction issue.