States of maintenance: Power, politics, and Egypt’s irrigation infrastructure

TLDR

Egypt’s irrigation infrastructure, a vast network of dams, canals, offtakes, and ditches, channels Nile water across the Valley and Delta to millions of farmers. The paper examines the critical role of maintenance in keeping Egypt’s irrigation system operational, questioning what is actually being preserved. I contrast two forms of canal maintenance: state‑led work by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation during an annual period, and everyday maintenance performed by farmers. State‑led maintenance reasserts state authority while fixing system problems, whereas farmers’ daily ditch cleaning fosters communal relations essential for water delivery, showing how maintenance sustains both material and social order.

Abstract

Egypt’s irrigation infrastructure comprises a vast network of dams, canals, offtakes, and ditches, which direct water from the Nile throughout the Nile Valley and Delta to millions of farmers who rely on that water to cultivate their land. In this paper, I focus on the vital work of maintenance, which keeps this infrastructure functioning and the water flowing. Yet rather than taking maintenance as an inherent good, I look critically at what exactly is being maintained. I contrast two forms of canal maintenance: first, the work that Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation conducts, mostly during an annual maintenance period; second, the maintenance that farmers conduct on an everyday basis. State-led maintenance, I argue, is as much about reasserting state authority over the irrigation system as it is about fixing problems within the system. The unsung maintenance of irrigation ditches by farmers, on the other hand, is not only about cleaning ditches but also building communal relations among farmers that are key to the delivery of the water on which they depend. Focusing attention on the decision-making processes around maintenance reveals the variegated outcomes of this work and how it maintains not only the material but also social order.