Evolutionary technologies in knowledge-based management of water resources: Perspectives from South Asian case studies

Water management technologies and approaches in South Asia can be considered the result of two opposite forces: on the one hand, the modernist push for technological advance and reductionist thinking supported by local bureaucracies and international competition; on the other, local attempts to develop adaptive approaches and technologies, increasingly supported by NGOs and more recent international aid policies. Despite the disproportionate power between the two, evolutionary patterns of technologies are not the result of linear domination forces. On the contrary, local technologies and knowledge seem to evolve through complex interplay between local and global pressures as a result of cognitive and practical interactions. In the attempt to deal with these issues, our paper analyses some case studies from India. Our particular concern is with the evolutionary patterns of water management approaches and technologies with reference to the changing local–global interaction dynamics. In this context, we discuss the innovation potential of actual interaction spaces and the role local and global actor networks play in shaping mechanisms of cognitive interaction and technological innovation.