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Ethnohydrology and Mekong Knowledge in transition:
An Introductory Approach to Mekong Hydraulic Cognition∗
Jakkrit Sangkhamanee∗∗
Summary
This paper proposes ‘ethnohydrology’ as an alternative approach to better reflects the bodies of water-
related knowledge beyond the polarization of science vs. local knowledge. As to cope with the transition of
water knowledge in the Mekong region, it employs ethnoscientific methods in comprehending hydrology
which not only allows hydroscience and local experience to be concomitantly examined, but as well as
integrating cognitive forms of knowledge into consideration. Semantic analysis of distinctive terminologies
and narratives on water knowledge is proposed as to assert cognitive domain in knowledge accumulation
and articulation. It calls for an assemblage of ideological, cultural, and pragmatic aspects of knowledge on
water dismantling the unproductive divide between science and local knowledge.
Introduction
Over the last few decades of Mekong subregional construction, ecological knowledge has become
more intriguing force in determining development direction of the region. The foundations and
functions of ecological knowledge are crucial factors in determining of development practice
toward the environment. In cultural ecology circle, the methodological and epistemological
difficulties associated with separating natures from human activities and cultures leads to conflicts,
impasse in development knowledge, and policy failures. Within the Mekong development circle,
the mainstream approach in understanding river morphology, ecology, and its related, applied
knowledge concerning resource management among the river ‘experts’ has mainly focused on
studies of scientific hydrology as a basis in river development projects such as dams, irrigation, and
river navigation. The knowledge for river basin development has centered on developing
numerical simulation ‘models’ of hydrological process. The model mainly involves the monitoring
of water quality and quantity. Most of the hydrological models developed for Mekong river basin
management today are based upon the knowledge gained from the data of physical approximation
and computational understanding of the river.
∗ Paper for International Conference ‘Critical transitions in the Mekong Region’, 29-31 January 2007, organized by Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University ∗∗ PhD candidate, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Research School for Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. E-mail: [email protected]
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The recent strategic plan of turning the Mekong into ‘a single international water resource
economy’ of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), and the configuration of what so-called the
‘Greater Mekong Subregion’ (GMS) instigated in the 1990s by the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), are the apparent space of success in introducing a standard knowledge on ecology for
economic stimulation by regional developmentalists. As often shown in their publications, those
subregional Mekong river development schemes under the development agencies such as the
MRC and the ADB are orienting toward the modeling of river regulations largely based on
modern technical knowledge on hydrology. As the chief executive officer of the MRC has marked
out in the report called Overview of the Hydrology of the Mekong Basin (MRC 2005a):
‘The link between hydrological regime, riverine ecology, the riparian
environment and the degree to which a river’s water resources can be
sustainably and equitably developed are complex. The starting point to
unraveling this complexity is an understanding of the hydrological regime and
a consensus amongst policy makers of what represents the benchmark
hydrology against which the magnitude of any changed can be measured.
One of the MRC Water Utilization Project is the identification of this
benchmark hydrology’. (emphasis added)
This scientific-hydrological report, which is set to ‘uncover and describe the key patterns and
features of the Mekong Basin hydrology and synthesize the results in a way that provide some
basic insights into the regime of river system’ (MRC 2005a), is however primarily aimed at bringing
those ‘applied scientists and engineers ranging from environmental analysts to water resource
planners’ in creating a workable ‘Mekong hydrological knowledge’. The identification of what
should be considered standard or ‘benchmark’ in hydrological knowledge for river management by
the MRC, however, is problematic as it is exclusively based on a specific set of scientific
observations and technical modeling. Other alternative forms of ecological knowledge, for the
MRC, stands outside their reference. The predomination of such expertise over the other existing
forms of knowledge are in a crucial juncture where the closer examinations are needed in order to
create an integrative approach to river development of the region.
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Figure 1 : A Greater Mekong Subregion Map charted by Asian Development Bank to exploit riverine resources in promoting economy through mega, interconnected development schemes
The production and the articulation of riverine ecological knowledge have become acute in
contemporary river development especially in the GMS plans and projects. From transnational
perspective, there is the rapid move toward ubregional river regulations under the GMS schemes
led by those development agencies mentioned above. Countering this from local standing point,
there is Mekong ecological knowledge accumulated among the riverine communities along the
river border communities particularly of northeastern Thailand. The purpose of this paper is to
introduce alternative approach for the analytical study of ecological knowledge on water as it
enters into the politics of river management and knowledge contestation in contemporary
transborder river development. This brings into focus and reexamines the ways in which ‘river’
and the interrelationship of local living, non-living, and supernatural entities within the riverscape
have been conceptualized, shared, and applied into daily practices by different groups of riparian
people. The attempt is to challenge the existing ‘benchmark hydrology’ on one hand, and to
challenge the portrayal of ‘local knowledge’ articulated in the recent river resource political debate
on the other.
The use of sole scientific hydrological knowledge and the monopolization/domination of one
knowledge system over other kinds of knowledge to legitimize the development projects, however,
often came with the detriments of local ecological and social issues (for an example of
comprehensive paper on dam issue, see McCully 2001). The issues of alternative riparian resource
management and development are now in a crucial position where it calls for a paradigm shift and
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pragmatic alternative approaches in comprehending the issues not only from single dominated set
of knowledge. As a result, the knowledge of resource management especially in the mainland
Southeast Asia has widely been turned into the interests of the roles and positions of alternative
ecological knowledge in shaping the individuals and communities’ practices toward their specific
ecosystem. The question of how Mekong riparian people conceptualize river and their transborder
knowledge has been taken into account as they can offer a critique of national and subregional,
modernized regime of today’s riverine resource rights and management.
Contemporary Mekong Hydrological Knowledge: Duality, Politicization, and its Impasse
Within the politics of Mekong resource development, there is widely a debate of how ecological
knowledge is being manipulated as to legitimize the use and management of river ecology and its
related resources by different agencies in the region. Within such debate, however, ecological
knowledge on water/river tends to be polarized as two modes of knowledge being opposed to
each other hence pointing out to different solutions in water policy. On one hand, there is
hydrological science used by regional development agencies such as the ADB and MRC. On the
other, there is ‘local knowledge’ articulated by NGOs, local academia, and networking
communities as an advocacy tool to negotiate in resource policies and conflicts. Such uncreative
dualistic view to knowledge is still widely shared among different stakeholders in the region today.
Scientific Hydrology and Hydraulic Modeling in Mekong River Basin
The focus of scientific hydrology in Mekong basin as a whole is framed with the hydrodynamic
technical methods and models dominated by MRC water projects and their hydrological experts.
The data collected as inputs for hydrological models are primarily concerned with the
measurement of mainstream flows and discharge, riverbank flood, rainfall, sediment load, water
diversion, and chemical and well as biological components such as dissolved hydrogen, nutrient,
and aquatic animals within the water. The hydraulic model is a set of methodologies and simulation
tools to understand the nature and predict changes in river geography in particular area while the
hydrological model may involves larger space of catchments or basin. Models are designed using
selected scientific methodologies to fit the purpose of a development project. For example, the
hydrological model of rainfall-runoff type, involving mathematical data and calculation that reflect
catchments storage and the amount and timing of the runoff response, would be used for
hydropower dam and irrigation projects.
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(Left)
Figure 2: Diagram showing lower Mekong river basin and its
tributaries. The mapped diagram is used for calculation of
the water input in hydrological modeling.
(Right)
Figure 3: Diagram showing basic classification
of river system in scientific hydrology
Under current Mekong river basin management, The Mekong River Commission (MRC), Asian
Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) which are the key international
organizations in managing the Mekong still use conventional methods in their planning of hydro-
projects (see MRC 2005a and 2005b, and WB 2004 for examples). Their interests in managing the
river are mainly for the purposes of hydropower, inter-basin water diversion, domestic and
industrial use, and irrigation. With this rationale of development, most of hydrological knowledge
are based on selected technical methodologies that can be used to develop models to understand,
calculate changes, and manage the river for the purpose of development projects. The key aspects
of river considered essential in order to formalize the knowledge and develop a good model are:
flow of river which involves rainfall and the discharge of water, channel morphology and changes
from erosion and deposition, changes in floodplains, basin sediment system and water quality in
terms of chemical and biological aspects.
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With supports of those organizations, many computer-based models have been developed over
the years to describe the hydrology and hydraulics of the river and its geographical changes of the
Mekong basin. During 2002-2004, MRC has developed its own package called Decision Support
Framework (DSF) to select and calibrate the models for Mekong river basin development under
its Water Utilization Project (WUP). The DSF itself is funded by the Global Environment Facility
through the World Bank. This DSF is considered by the MRC as ‘a powerful analytical tool for
understanding the behavior of the river basin and for making planning decisions on how best to
manage its water and related natural resources’ (MRC 2005b).
Figure 4: MRC’s Decision Support Framework of Water Utilization Program
(http://www.mrcmekong.org/programmes/wup/DSF/DSF_Introduction.htm)
Within the MRC’s Decision Support Framework, the integration of alternative methods to
hydrological knowledge, especially those arisen from socio-cultural perspectives, is yet very limited.
Those socially relevant modes of water knowledge, though widely expressed and promoted by
academics from several different fields, NGOs, media, and local peoples, are still finding its way to
be merged into the mainstream hydrological knowledge in regional development circle.
Local Knowledge as an ‘Advocacy Tool’
Different modes of ecological knowledge and practices can be manipulated and used for political
purpose in accessing and controlling resources (Demaine 1990) by changing power relations
among stakeholders. During the past few decades, the attention in development and resource
management social science academics has been expanded, if not broadly turned, into the
alternative realm of acquaintance in what so-called ‘local knowledge’. In mainland Southeast Asia
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and especially Thailand, the studies of ‘local knowledge’ often pay attention to how such body of
knowledge can be used as a way of criticizing state’s control and monopolization of science-based
policy makings over the issues of community forest, river basin development, land uses, and
coastal and marine environment. Particularly of debates within political ecology, ‘local knowledge’
has often been deployed in redefining peoples’ identity in accordance with alternative development
(Reynolds 2002), the articulation of local resource rights and controls (see Pinkaew 2002 and Yos
2003 for examples) and the political tools utilized by new social movements in defining over
resource tenure (see Missingham 2003).
In political ecology perspectives, natural resources can be economically manipulated and
controversially politicized. And to that matter, local ecological knowledge is a crucial political
apparatus in determining the tendency of politics in shaping the regime of resource management.
Formalized grassroots researches conducted by local riparian people being affected by
development projects are examples of crucial, and obvious, bodies of knowledge being articulated
under the debates of ecological knowledge in Thailand. The key example is the ‘Thai Baan Paper’
(Southeast Asia Rivers Network et al. 2004) of Pak Mun communities in northeastern Thailand
which, after its success in policy negotiation, set the model of the ways local people can present
their local knowledge in an accepted paper format supported of non-government organizations
and academia.
The first Thai Baan, literally means ‘villagers’, paper emerged as a political response of grassroots
environmental movement to the dam construction on the Mun river, the Mekong tributary. It was
aimed at first in counter-balance the hegemonic approach to the conventional form of paper or, to
be precise, scientific methodologies. One important concern when locating this paper in the
debates of ecological knowledge is that it is the politics of river management and the resource
conflicts that brought the Thai Baan paper came to existence; the paper was not the natural process
of knowledge production and articulation in daily basis. The paper claims that ‘Thai Baan paper
presents a concrete example of how common villagers can do and use paper to negotiate the
unbalance power relation existing in the process of knowledge production and development’
showing the political advocacy in the expression of knowledge into a formal style. Realizing such
significance of knowledge in negotiating power relations, this paper by the villagers is therefore
intent to represent what they see as ‘social reality’ (Southeast Asia Rivers Network et al. 2004) that
has largely been neglected or ignored in river development discourse. In other words, the Thai
Baan knowledge production itself is political driven and acts as a part of new social movement as it
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writes: ‘without struggles of Pak Mun villagers, this paper cannot be realized’ (Southeast Asia
Rivers Network et al. 2004).
While setting up as a critique to limited scientific methodologies in understanding complex ‘social
reality’, Thai Baan paper came up with distinctive set of their own methodology. It firstly focused
on the issue of fisheries but later found relevant to also include other issues revolved around river
ecology and livelihood such as plants and vegetation, fishing gears, dry season river bank vegetable
garden and other social, economic and cultural issues. By locating villagers as the main researchers
and integrating related issues revolved around fishery livelihood into the consideration, Thai Baan
paper should represent a ‘local knowledge’ embedded within community context as it initially
planned. It is undeniable that Thai Baan paper has made a great contribution to the existing
knowledge on water/ river and played a crucial role in the river politics, however there are some
shortcomings that need to be further considered and taken into account in formulating hydro-
related knowledge in a long run. For this paper, whether this system of knowledge has a potential
and can be employed to critiques and provide a better solution for the existing, limited, knowledge
on water management, and how it is being politicized, hence creating epistemological pitfalls, are
key starting points of investigation and discussion.
Figure 5: Traditional fishing gears are collected to show the existing ‘local knowledge’ in river management (from http://www.searin.org/Th/fishinggear_en.htm)
When framing and aiming to articulate local ecological knowledge within political orientation,
there are some crucial aspects of knowledge risk being left from the presented picture. Those
cultural and ideological forms and roots of knowledge, often viewed as less political-driven, are
excluded in the recent portrayal of the ‘local knowledge’. The ‘social reality’ expressed in such
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‘local knowledge’ has unfortunately been reduced to what is only relevant to their political purpose
in resource negotiations.
The recent portrayal of local knowledge being binary opposed to science in ‘river politics’,
however, shows at least two shortcomings in comprehending ‘hydrological knowledge’ as it
actually is. First, by presenting ‘local knowledge’ as an ideal to resource management, it downplays
the multi-interpretation of ecological knowledge and hence creating an impasse in knowledge
appropriation. Secondly, by politicizing ‘local knowledge’ within the resource management regime,
it ignores other crucial ideological and cultural aspects of knowledge that seems to be less useful
being as a ‘tool’ for political advocacy. This paper argues that by selecting and packaging ‘local
knowledge’ based merely within resource politics framework, it would dismiss some factors of
knowledge production and risk creating an impasse to ecological knowledge as a whole.
The critiques to recent portrayal of ‘local knowledge’ in Thailand are marked in the works of
Forsyth and Walker (forthcoming). They argue that while some have argued that it is strategically
important to promote the conservationist credentials of local knowledge, there is a real risk that
such knowledge become ‘selectively packaged’ so as to exclude what are seen to be discordant
elements. They propose that what is needed is a much more open approach to local knowledge.
Concerning the promotion of local knowledge within the contemporary development trend,
Agrawal (1999) points to the fact that only those forms of indigenous knowledge that are seen as
‘potentially relevant’ to development need attention and protection. And with that tendency, other
forms of such knowledge, precisely because they are irrelevant to the needs of development are
allowed to pass away. Agrawal calls this process of knowledge identification and separation of
what considered ‘useful’ elements as ‘particularization’ of knowledge. This paper argues that the
process of particularization is happening in the wide cases of current local knowledge
conceptualization and articulation within the Mekong river resource politics. This process may do
well in empowering local knowledge as it is packaged and ready to use for advocacy goal. But at
the same time, some elements in local ecological knowledge are overshadowed by the legitimizing
merely particular forms of ‘local knowledge’ that seems to be the ‘politically relevant’ to political
activities, especially in the case of new social movement. This way, it would only bring, to use
Walker’s term (2001), ‘limited legitimacy’ to the local knowledge. Greater and more flexible
legitimacy of what can be considered as local knowledge should be established as this is not only
better our understanding from the more holistic view of existing knowledge. But, more
importantly, it would allowed ‘local knowledge’ to be expressed from different angles leaving
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wider flexibility to use for multi-purposes, including development advocacy, hence creating greater
chance of local participation in development regime, and empowering local communities at large.
This is to suggest that a self-criticism is needed in the articulation of ‘local knowledge’ that should
seek to open a wider space that allows diverse forms of knowledge being labeled as a ‘local
knowledge’. The advocacy goal, undoubtedly, is still important. But alternatives knowledge may
prove useful in the long run as its can be selected and used in a wider cases beyond the available
‘local knowledge’ merely based on immediate advocacy to the resource conflicts. The key concern
that should be brought into light is that local ecological knowledge on water/river is more than
merely those deployed for policy negotiation. There are ideo-cultural aspects that recent portrayal
of ‘local knowledge’ on river/water often ignored, yet are relevant if the existing state of
knowledge is to be comprehended. Epistemology and methodology to local ecological knowledge
need to be developed and broaden as to cope with the cultural sphere of hydrology.
In addition to self-critique and the greater possibility of inserting diverse forms of experience into
‘local knowledge’, this paper sees the necessity of incorporating both western scientific and local
knowledge as a productive engagement for resource management. The dichotomized process that
the modernization developmentalists attempt to deny validity to the knowledge and the local
people and the attempts by theorists of indigenous knowledge to downplay science, as Agrawal
(1995) put it ‘politics of derogation’, should be lifted up if integrative ecological knowledge is to be
formed. A plausible direction in dismantling the divide between local and scientific knowledge
would be to recognize the multiplicity of logics and practices that underlie the creation and
maintenance of different knowledges (Agrawal 1995).
‘Ethnohydrology’: Interfacing Hydro-science and Local Ecological Knowledge
This paper sets forth to examine ecological knowledge on water from the lens of ethnoecology
(see Berkes 1999, Gragson and Blount et al. 1999, Frake 1962, and Nazarea ed. 1999). The
theoretical framework of ethnoecology provides a methodology and a scientific field technique for
revealing the cognitive aspects of human-environment relationships but at the same time takes
into account behavior that connects people’s ideas to environment they survive in (Johnson 1947
cited in Woodley 1991). Ethnoecology focuses primarily on the ideas, perceptions and
classifications of the environmental relationships of members of a particular community or
culture. Thus, an emic view on representation of the environment from within- as opposed to the
etic view from outside – is a key of concern. This inevitably involves cosmology as it regulates the
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people’s interactions with their environment (Slikkerveer 1999).
Being under a discipline of ethnoscience, ethnoecology involves the use of ethnographic,
ethnohistorical, and linguistics methods to study place-based ecological knowledge; it involves the
study of the cognitive structures, and local languages, that constitute the traditional environmental
knowledge of local cultures. Ethnoecology can be deployed by anthropologist to interpret
‘ecological’ cultures holding that culture is composed of psychological structures by means of
which individuals or groups of individuals guide their behavior (Geertz 1973) in relations with
their ecological surroundings. The very question concerning theoretical shift is that how
ethnoecology as an approach within anthropology can contribute to the epistemology and
methodological refashioning that current self-critical reflection calls for. Moreover, what role
ethnoecology can play in interdisciplinary dialogue and action outside anthropology, especially
those of natural sciences (Nazarea ed. 1999, see also Nader ed. 1996) is a challenging question to
be tackled. In addition to its account to sciences, within the social sciences approaches itself,
ethnoecology today is moving toward what is called 'engaged anthropology'. But what needs to be
delved into is the way ethnoecology can be deployed to criticize and develop the
limited ethnographic methodology and the existing positivistic science concerning natural
resources.
Ethnoscience or cognitive anthropology has been used interchangeably in recent academics to
designate the study of folk conceptual system (Amundson 1982). But the term ‘cognitive
anthropology’ are in more favor than ‘ethnoscience’ since the term itself suggests that other kind
of ethnography are not science and only the native thoughts and their classifications are the only
science (Amundson 1982 and Sturtevant 1964). Yet the term ‘ethnoscientific’ as a method is still
widely used within academia as the study of the organizing principles underlying behavior,
including the systematic construction of folk definitions (Woodley 1991). The idea of using
ethnoscientific methods is the need of fuller development of ethnographic method and theory,
and also intra-cultural comparison to determine the ‘nature of culture’ or the nature of cognition –
or ‘how the native think’ (Sturtevant 1964).
The main focus in ethnoscientific method is to understand the way locals express their knowledge
through the use of language, often called ‘semantic analysis’, in classifying their society and
environments. It is intended to provide the ethnographer with public, non-intuitive procedures for
ordering the presentation ob observed and elicited events according to principles of classification
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of the people being studied (Frake 1971). This can be considered of great contribution in the
contemporary studies of ‘local knowledge’ since it goes beyond the materialist approach by trying
to capture the cognitive worldview that come to shape the practice as well. The extension of the
study of ‘local knowledge’ into the realm of people mentality and cognitive sphere is supported by
the argument made by Goodenough (1957 cited in Frake 1971) that culture does not only consist
of things, people, behavior, or emotions, but the forms or organization of these things in the mind
of people. Not only from academic sphere that ethnoscientific methods are employed to studies
local ecological knowledge, the techniques can be applied in creating dialogue among stakeholders
in development projects as well. Warren and Meehan (1977) suggested that ethnoscientific
understanding can be used in rural development programming to increase sensibility to local
needs, facilitate meaningful dialogues, and provide a mechanism by which small-scaled
agriculturists can become involved in the development process. Ethnoscientific approach is then
considered as a workable strategy this paper will employ to develop and better reflect the existing
knowledge of water/river on the riparian Mekong peoples, and then to step forward as to integrate
‘local knowledge’ to the mainstream hydrological knowledge in the region.
This paper suggests not merely looking at how the spiritual applicability of cosmological ideology
related to river and its resources has shaped people mentality, body of knowledge, but also their
pragmatic adaptability and practices concerning the regulatory regime of resource management
across the shared border river of the Mekong and in the context of subregional river development.
This process looks at how different modes of knowledge are being mobilized, for example, in
relation to current resource access, utilization and control conflicts.
This paper, therefore, attempt to bring into light the innovative approach to the study of what so-
called ‘ethnohydrology’ of the Mekong River. The significance of the study can be equated to the
way other subdisciplines of ethnoecology such as ethnobotany, ethnoentomology and
ethnozoology contribute to the alternative conceptions of our natural environment as it seeks to
provide an understanding of the systems of knowledge that local people have. In this sense, the
study of ethnohydrology will basically cover for natural history and dynamic studies that derived
from local people socially attached to the specific natural space of river. However, the
ethnohydrology can be more than a study of natural history and changing knowledge of the people
regarding the river through an anthropological perspective. Rather it also seeks to understand the
complex, interdependent relationships between a physical space of environment and socially-
constructed space in both empirical and ideological sense, and the dynamics of both in shaping
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each other. Under the transition of Mekong water, knowledge, this paper calls for a greater chance
of opening up alternative academic space of ‘hydrology’ in understanding the historical
background and pragmatic application of the natural and cultural-based ideology of the Mekong
riverine peoples through the local everyday practices, contextual regulations, and peoples’
cosmologies and myths, and their senses of place regarding resource management. This looks at
how the practical and spiritual applicability of such social ideology is at work in shaping people
mentality, body of knowledge toward river, as well as their practices concerning the regulatory
regime of resource management across the shared border river of the Mekong. It is an ethical
aspect of ethnic competence that ethno-study will contribute to the existing knowledge of river
hydrology as to principally understand the cultural relations and influences in the accumulation
and expression of knowledge of river system.
Lévi-Strauss (1966 and 1978), among many, suggests that it is more productive, instead of
contrasting magic and science, to compare them as two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge.
Both science and magic require the same sort of mental operations and they differ not so much in
kind as in different types of phenomena to which they are applied. As to avoid having a simple
‘binary opposition’ argument, and accepting the notion of ‘science for the West, myth for the rest’
(see Scott 1996), this paper will seek a holistic understanding of hydrology emerged from
combining different bodies of knowledge. Since locality has never been abolished by the national
and worldwide modernity development, there is then a question of how global and subregional
aspects have slipped into local discourse and are accepted by local communities as parts of their
local knowledge. Therefore, the issues around cultural and technical engagement of tradition-
modern assemblage relating to the construction of local knowledge will be addressed and explored
in this paper. By exploring the formation, transformation, and interactions between indigenous
and other forms of knowledge, it is important to explore the hybrid of knowledge system based on
the local beliefs that are increasingly reshaped by the modern paradigm of space imagination and
construction. That, hopefully, will enable us to see how a situated knowledge can be formed and
suitably applied to a specific locality in the realm of sustainable resource management.
What can be done to make Mekong hydrology an ‘ethno’ one
As to understand multi-aspect of the ways ecological knowledge can be accumulated and analyzed,
it is impossible to limit the study approach within the framework of science or social sciences, not
to mention a single approach of study. Frake (1962) points out that ethnographer cannot be
satisfied with a mere cataloguing of the components of a cultural ecosystem according to the
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categories of Western science. But rather environment must also be described as the people
themselves construe it according to the categories of their ethnoscience (Frake 1962). Multi-
disciplinary approach also needs to be taken into account as to supplement the limitation
ethnoscientic methods have. This includes, but should not limit to, those methodologies used in
scientific hydrology, ethnoecology and cognitive anthropology in comprehending the expansive
picture of ethnohydrological knowledge concerning resource management regimes.
The use of ethoscientific methods is not merely to understand the classifications and terminologies
related to water and river exist among the local people in caparison to those in scientific
hydrology. This study pushes interest in the study of classification and terminological systems
beyond a matching of translation labels between science and local knowledge. If we can arrive at
comparable knowledge about peoples’ concepts of water, weather, river system, social factors, and
supernaturals for example, we have at least a sketch map of the world in the image of the locals
(see Frake 1971). Below shows some methodologies designed to cope with different, yet related,
aspects showed in the diagram above. This will deal with the existing mental pursuits and
ideological narratives of the beliefs in water/river sacredness. The second set of methodology is
employed to examine the applicability of such beliefs in daily expression within riparian peoples
and the ways those cultural practices shape community conservation. Lastly, comparative
hydrological ‘modus operandi’ or operational/pragmatic knowledge will be studied.
I. Understanding ideological/cosmological knowledge on water/river
Myths, folklores, and traditional narratives of water beliefs. Studies that reveal the complex
relationships between ecological adaptation and indigenous knowledge in the guise of myth,
superstition, and religion are necessary to understand why humans behave as they do in relation to
the environment and their resource use practices (Woodley 1991). As to document local forms of
knowledge and perceptions of water persisted in peoples’ cognitive sphere, relevant mythologies,
folktales, legends, beliefs and any kinds of cosmological projections concerning river should be
compiled and contextually analyzed. Methodologically, this can be done through a combination of
in-depth interviews, everyday dialogues, and participatory observation in community ceremonies.
The classic studies of the structure of myth by Lévi-Strauss (1978 and 1987), concerning mainly
with the unconscious nature of collective phenomena, propose that myth is not just fairly-tale; it
contains a message (Leach 1970). For that, structural analysis of myth deserves serious attention in
order to understand cultural logics pervaded in a particular context of society. In the Mekong
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region, there are at least two important regional myths that have long been known and recited in
several local ceremonies throughout the Mekong communities and lately have been
comprehensively translated to English publications. One is Phadaeng Nang Ai (Wajuppa 1990) and
the other one is Phya Khankhaak (Wajuppa 1996). The Phadaeng Nang Ai, probably the first of Thai-
Isan folktale ever translated into English verse, deals throughout its ‘epic’ the explanation of
regional geography, local place-naming, and more importantly the interpretation of multi-layered
relations between humans and the nature asserted by the beliefs in Buddhist doctrine and
cosmology. Wajuppa (1990: 25) claims that Phadaeng Nang Ai continues to be a cultural force in
Isan tradition as it is still told and performed annually at the firing-rocket-for-rain Bun Bangfai
festivals as well as recited during other occasions throughout the years. In fact, myth is far from
being an idle mental pursuit; it is vital ingredient of practical relation to the environment. For that
reason, Tambiah (1970) in his anthropological work of Isan spirit cults referred to two versions of
the myth of Phadaeng Nang Ai he collected from two local sources followed by his structural
analysis of such myth. Tambiah (1970: 299) came up with conclusion of Phadaeng Nang Ai that
while the plot of the myth overtly predicates an antagonism between man and nature, the
underlying message is the resolution of the relationship between them in terms of fertile union and
sharing of common properties. For Tambiah, the Phadaeng Nang Ai myth portrays what he called
the ‘balance equation between naturalization of human society and the humanization of nature’
(1970: 300) through the narration of triangular contested love of the Naga’s son Pangkee,
Phadaeng, and the princess Nang Ai.
Another folktale which is crucial and probably pointing more directly toward the water belief is the
myth of Isan fertility, Phya Khankhaak or the Toad King. Wajuppa (1996: 11) sums up in her
introduction to the translation of Phya Khankhaak that the verse tale is the story of a toad-like hero
who succeeds in his revolt against the rain god who refuses to send rain to earth. She further
elaborates the relations of the story with the beliefs of Isan people have on natural catastrophes
and the way they cope with such phenomenon, especially flood and draught, through different
ceremonies concerning spiritual practices throughout the year round. The myth itself, as Wajuppa
claims, besides mere entertainment, carries important implications to the Isan people. To mention
a few, the story which show the triumph of a human over a god helps powerless people to have
hope in their lives that some day they may be able to overcome their burdensome problems (1996:
25-26) and while they are still struggle with their water problems, the story explain that god is
responsible for it (1996: 26). However, in careful reading of the myth, it is interesting to see how
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the ideological set of hydrological knowledge, focusing on rain, is poetically elaborated in the text;
the myth says (1996: 73-74):
Regarding the true history of rain:
“The origin of rain is a great lake, situated in the wide open space in the sky….
… As for Phya Naga kings from surrounding oceans…
We go to seek audience before Phya Thaen every year.
Phya Thaen then instruct all of us Phya Naga kings to play in the great lake,
beating the water with our tails.
Thus, we would splash the water in the great lake making wave the size of mountain
flow down in the air where the water is juggled back and forth by strong wind
before it begins to crash against a million cliffs of Mount Sumeru.
Later it splashes in the air everywhere in Jambu Continent
And then the splashes become hail hurling about in the skies
whereby the wind balances them all around.
At last the hail is melted into falling water which falls amid the precipitating wind
and, in turn, the wind carries drops of water through the clouds.
Humans down in Jambu then call the phenomenon ‘rain’ as always.”
The folklore studies seem to be best in portraying the ideological roots as how traditional
knowledge is formed based on local beliefs. However, as an approach to understand the
complexities of contemporary resource conflicts and the production of ecological knowledge in
policy negotiation, the description of merely folktales and mythologies seem rather political naïve.
The apolitical nature of folkway depiction as a text needs to be complemented and brought into
living social phenomenon by an ethnographic study of how the beliefs, inscribed in text and
recited in sacred ceremonies, actually play in daily life of the people uphold to it. To go further
from just ‘reading’ myth from the paper text, Malinowski (1971) discussed the notion of myth and
its psychological impacts in shaping people mentality arguing that folktales, legends, and myths
must be lifted from their flat existence on paper, and be placed in the three-dimensional reality of
full life. In that regard, myths further need to be located as to understand why and how people still
carry such beliefs and how the beliefs, in turn, shape people mentalities and practices toward their
nature.
Mind Mapping of traditional/existing ways of classifying sacred areas that may lead to the
community conservation. River and its related areas can be considered as not only a geographical
space but, equally important, a socio-cultural one. Local people may or may not draw maps,
however. But that does not ultimately mean that they do not pose a notion of geographical
features. Cognitive maps can be visually charted with assistance of a researcher during an engaging
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ethnographic study of local spatial classification, regulation, and use.
Human geography provides the understanding of how the local people accumulate, produce,
transform, and articulate their riverine local knowledge related to particular ecological sphere (see
Rigg ed. 1992 and Rigg and Rigg and Stott 1992). Though recent human geographical approach
extensively raises the issue of how local approach in riverine physical classification in specific,
however, it has still been limitations in dealing with the metaphysics and the cosmological
background in shaping people practices toward their physical space. This is not to mention two
existing shortcomings: the apolitical nature of its analysis and the approach itself needs to be
further coped in comparison to, and dealing with, the scientific hydrology in determining the
intricacy of river development politics.
Human-geographical relations are often expressed through different means. The obvious examples
are mapping; be it social mapping, economic, demographic, or topographical mapping. All maps
contain some human perspectives embedded into it. On one hand, people often express their
understanding of space and its related characteristics through maps. Map as a whole is an icon
serves as a metaphoric description of the terrain (Leach 1976, see also Thongchai 1994). But on
the other hand, the produced maps can, consciously and unconsciously, shape people mentality
and understanding of that perceived space as well.
Tribhumi or Three Worlds cosmological map is an excellent cognitive model conveying the relation
between the traditional ideology and living geography in Thailand. The map is based on the
cosmography dated back to the period of old Sukhothai around fourteenth century A.D. The
Tribhumi, according to the cosmography, consist of the Formless Realm, Realm of Forms, and the
Realm of Sensation, all Three Worlds are subdivided into thirty-one hierarchical levels. The
human-beings world rests in the lowest Realm of Sensation so most of the narratives and
descriptions pay special attention to this realm. However, according to the belief, human world
and its natural phenomena are connected with the world above it, having several different spiritual
deities’ overlooking. Reynolds (2006) points out that one of the reasons Buddhist cosmography
fitted so well into mainland Southeast Asian societies is that it included a place for the creatures of
animism. The world where human live on is interestingly narrated as having a Mount Meru as a
center surrounded by eight circular mountain ranges; the last mountain range being the wall of the
universe. The mountains ranges are divided by rough seas inhibited by mythical aquatic animals.
There are many more of the description of the structure of the world arise from this cosmography
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including the present of different deities, devils, and animals which play different roles in creating
and changing natural phenomena such as rain, thunderstorm, fire, fertility, and changes in
landscape of the earth (see more detailed description of the Tribhumi in Reynolds and Reynolds
1982). Reynolds (in Tambiah 1984) suggests that the Tribhumi provided the Thai with a
classification and a ‘taxonomy of animate existence’
just as systems of botany and zoology did for the
West. However, as Reynolds (2006) claims, the
explanations in the Tribhumi for natural phenomena
such as planetary movement, weather, biological
processes were shaken after the arrival of the
explanations offered by Western science.
Figure 6: Cosmological Map reflecting traditional perception of cultural symbolism and believing systems of mainland Southeast Asian celestial hydraulic society
Referring to some aspects of the Tribhumi cosmology and its application on the local folk cognitive
sphere, Naga: Cultural Origins in Thailand and the West Pacific by Sumet (1988) is also another
interesting study unpacking the relationships between the living human experiences and the
geographical characteristics that the society is based. In Thailand and others places in Southeast
Asia, the book claims that that there is always an urge of the people to create cosmological models
on water whenever there is a chance to do so. The study exhibits Southeast Asia’s water
symbolism reflected on people settlements, old geographical town structures, household
architectures and landscape-based ceremonies which shows that there has always been a constant
attraction to the water element. The obvious example is the local methods of propitiating rain such
as the Bang fai rite practiced with vigor by framers all over the northeast Thailand. The Bang fai is a
rocket made of bamboo with essential decorative symbol of Naga. The inference of the Naga
projectile in Bang Fai festival goes back to the original serpent-cloud releasing the water of life and
as such is connected to the fertility of life on earth (Sumet 1988). Also there are other festivals and
ceremonies that relate to rain, river, and water such as Songkran and Loy Kratong which several
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traditional practices are examples of the existing symbolism correspond to the physiographic rings
around the central mountain continent in the Tribhumi cosmography. However, there are some
missing links in the study of why the notion or imagination of water symbolism has penetrated, and
still persists, in our experiences since today not many people really understand the idea behind it,
let alone encode the existing traditions that directly related to water. The very questions of why
such mentality still worthwhile conserved and still reproduced by the local people in present
days call for more in-depth ethnographic study.
II. Community conservation/management of river resource through ceremonial
practices
As to go beyond folk studies of myths from text or a fixed narration in understanding people-river
relations, this paper suggests ethnographic study of local myths, rites, and belief systems to
examine water ideology in contemporary context. This will enable us to get insight into the
everyday senses of place and ‘ecological cosmology’ shared among local people. However,
especially in the ream of water cultures, most ethnographic studies seem to be a narration of
community practices focusing on ceremonies and rituals related to water beliefs, but not go far
enough as to analyze how such cultural practices really function in water resource management in
a practical sense.
It has been debated of how anthropologists can study cosmology and other kinds of ideologies as
to understand its pragmatic application on specific issues such as resources management and
community actions. Some suggests the ethnographic study of its representations such as folk
stories, rituals, symbols, and its relations with popular religions as social discourse. Lévi-Strauss
(1987) proposes the study of ritual considered as an ‘acted myth’ or otherwise look at myth as a
‘thought ritual’. Myths as studied by Lévi-Strauss often start out as an oral tradition associated with
certain kinds of religious rituals (Leach 1970). Besides expressed through sacred rites and
ceremonies, Geertz (1973) furthers that culture is also an inter-worked of system of symbol,
shared among a certain group members’ mind and work to characterize the whole system of the
group to some extent. Geertz proposes that practically two approaches must converge if one is to
interpret a culture. The first is through a description of particular symbolic forms as defined
expression, and the other is a contextualization of such forms within the whole structure of
meaning of which they are a part and in term if which they get their definition (Geertz 1980).
Leach (1976), in his introduction to the use of structuralism analysis in social anthropology,
enunciates both points made by Lévi-Strauss and Geertz that the most important area where a
20
kind of material symbolization is in evidence is in religious rituals. Leach proposes that the way in
which concepts in mind such as ‘spirit’ can be externalized is through two means of expression.
The first one is by telling stories or myths in which the metaphysical ideas are represented by the
activities of supernatural beings. The second mean is to creating special material objects, buildings
and spaces, which serve as representations. Both, of course, are interdependent (Leach 1976). It is
important to take local rituals and ceremonies as not only a social performance but also a cultural
institution in expressing people’s ideologies concerning their environments. Formulations and
changes in rituals can represent the ways people mentality toward nature changed. In the same
fashion with ritual operation, therefore, symbolic creations correspond to peoples’ believed entities
relating to river in daily activities and physical edifices need to be observed, interpreted, and
inscribed in a form of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973).
Local ceremonies and festivities associated with drought, flood, rain, and fertility. This will allow
us to explore from ideo-pragmatic dimension of how the traditional beliefs still influence the local
practices in resource regulation and conflict resolution. The key ceremonies are as below.
i. Boon bungfai (บุญบ้ังไฟ)
ii. Tao siang khong, Tao mae nang dong (เตาเสี่ยงของ, เตาแมนางดง)
iii. Dueng khrok dueng saak (ดึงครก ดึงสาก)
iv. Long khuang phi faa (ลงขวงผีฟา)
v. Suad khaathaa plaa kho (สวดคาถาปลาคอ)
III. Pragmatic ethnohydrological knowledge on several key aspects
Climate: Temperature and evaporation, rainfall, and climate change. On one hand, climate
factors are keys to regional management of Mekong river especially with the dam projects. On the
other, local observation on climate changes done by the lay people are crucial for their agrarian
activities such as fisheries, farming, food, festivals and so on. Ethnohydrological research focuses
on how people know about the changes, e.g. how they measure the quantity of rainfall each year.
In addition to what and how they know, it is in particular interest of how such changes are related
to their livelihood.
Flows in Mekong mainstream and its tributaries. Seasonal discharge of water in the Mekong is
observed and well-recorded by the various MRC hydrological sites along the river. Hydrographs
21
and charts are always used as to show annual flow of the river. Ethnohydrology research seeks to
understand and explain how the river flow is captured through the eyes and experience of local
riparian.
Floods and Droughts. Floods are normally measured in terms of maximum or peak discharge.
This provides hydrologists/developmentalists with a statistic analysis of water volumes and its
historical incidence throughout the years. For drought, it is considered to be more complex to
predict than floods since it is also concerned with climatological phenomena such as rainfall hence
making the link between wet and dry season hydrology in the Mekong a complicated study. The
issues of floods and droughts should be expressed by the locals and ethnohydrological researchers
should seek to see local approach in determining of both phenomena. The adaptation to such
seasonal changes is important as to see how their existing knowledge can be used to cope with the
changing ecology.
Watershed geography and classification. The MRC has its own way, based on hydrological
geography and development agenda, in dividing the Mekong into six main parts which they call
each a ‘reach’ (MRC 2005a). Hydrological reach can be considered as the way the river is classified
regionally. The attempt of ethohydrological research is to look at how local classification of river
geography is done by the local communities. Besides cognitive geography express through
cosmological myths and folktales, folk classification and terminologies used in explaining of
geographic features of river system is a crucial semantic representation of how people experience a
riverscape based upon their accumulated hydrological knowledge. Far from being able to say that
men classify quite naturally, by a sort of necessity of their individual understandings, Durkheim
and Mauss (1963) suggest that we must on the contrary ask ourselves what could have led them to
arrange their idea in this way, and where they could have found the plan of such remarkable
disposition. Local classification of river system can be considered as a way to understand how local
people conceptualize their ecological space in relations with geographical and cultural aspects.
Lévi-Strauss (1966) advises that some initial order can be introduced into the universe by means of
groupings and that classifying has a value of its own whatever form the classification may take. He
further points out that the role of ethnographic literatures, and the study of classifications, is to
reveal many of such equal empirical and aesthetic values.
Bourdieu (1990), in his analysis of the logic of practical knowledge, develops further discussion
about systems of classification. He points out that classification signifies reconstructing the socially
22
constituted system of inseparably cognitive and evaluative structures that organize perception of
the world and action in the world in accordance with the objective structures of a given state of
the social world. In short, Bourdieu (1990) sees classification as a cognitive instrument fulfilling
the functions that are not purely cognitive. One illustrative example of this approach would be to
study the way local people identify their particular ecological system of ‘river rapids’, using various
distinctive terms such as kang, don, khum, and wern to signify the culturally situatedness of
knowledge in physical space of natures. Moreover, local classifications of the river system, deriving
from both ideological and practical engagements, are usually expressed in accordance with their
traditional cosmology, mythology, sacred entities, and folkways as well as their contemporary
issues of resource rights and tenure. This is a stark contrast to the perception and policy
implementation of the Mekong subregional economic development agencies that see river rapids
merely as submerged rocks endanger to river navigation or an obstacle for hydropower dam’s
water discharge, and hence deserved to be blasted away. This ethnoecological knowledge on
cartography would insert a more detailed, based on a smaller scale of ecosystem, into a river basin
framework of classification. This may lead to a better understanding of impacts of subregional
river development to the local livelihood.
River Transects. In contrast to the watershed classification of water which looks at the river from
the top view, hydrological classification of water surface is a way in which river is charted and
classifies from the vertical or cross-section view. River transect trips will be organized, or may be
researchers just accompany, the local riparian people and the hydrologist on different occasions
but focusing on the same geographical area. The river transect can be used as a basic evaluation of
how knowledge of the same geography can be understood through different experiences of
different people. The findings is hoped to show the analogy and well as diversity - the knowledge
interface (Mahiri 1998) - of ecological knowledge of water.
Figure 7: Scientific Surface Water Classification (Musy, 2001)
23
Local hydrological modeling. Hydrological engineers use mathematical equations to ‘model’ real
world behavior of river as they can predict what will happen to a system if the factors mentioned
above are changed (MRC 2005a). MRC has designed their own ‘modeling package’ called Decision
Support Framework (DSF) along with other hydrological models to make it possible to investigate
the environment and socio-economic impacts of changes in the quantity and the quality of the
river system brought about by changing circumstances with the river basin (MRC 2005a). In
contrast to that mathematic, computer-based approach, ethnohydrological research seeks to come
up with the local way and how riparian people examine and estimate the overall relationships of
above aspects together as expressed as their mode of thought. The question like how the local
people forecast weather and river changes based on their experience will be tackled. This is further
linked with how decisions have been made in river management and conservation locally.
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