Local Knowledge, Cultural Meanings and Management of Water in Qashqai’s Nomad Groups of Iran: An Ethnography of Water

In the last few decades, the significance and emergence of environmental crises and discourses has led to the rise of a number of interdisciplinary studies and anthropologists, considering culture as the intersection of the environmental and the anthropological discourses, has addressed the environmental issues particularly water as the most vital element of the environment. In this view, water is at this time considered as one of the greatest challenges faced by the human societies in both natural resources and social justice. Anthropology with the holistic and inter-disciplinary and environmentally sustainable approach, provides an appropriate ground for studying various aspects, cultural meanings and crises of water, as it is reflected in its subject, i.e. culture. This study was conducted using the ethnographic methods including ethnographic interviews, participatory observations and collective interviews among three clans of Qashqai nomad groups in Fars Province of Iran. The findings of this study reveals that for Qashqai’s people, water is vital not only for living and environmental sustainability and livelihood, but also it is important from a wide variety of cultural, political, economic, psychological, vacation, legal and gender-related functions. Hence, Crisis in water has multiple implications for their live and for the cultural meanings of water.