Paper short abstract:

The poetic collective work which plays a significant role in the subsistence of local people using the circulation of water throughout a 35-km long valley in the Eastern Anatolia is at the threat of aggressive development projects.

Paper long abstract:

Water's vitality in circulation of life has been narrated for centuries by creation-cosmology myths such as Enûma Eliš, Popol Vuh and Ainu, and eschatological stories. The strong relationship between water and social life that has been developed and reinforced by such oral traditions for centuries has been dramatically interrupted with interventions in circulation of water by development projects. While both development and water have very important functions in human life, this interruption rooted the water out of its social context. During a 2-month fieldwork in one of the valleys in Eastern Anatolia, I had the chance to witness a poetic relationship local people have been experiencing with the stream which runs through a narrow valley until huge construction machines and crowded workforce appeared at the convergence of their stream and the Çoruh River. During my observations, in-depth interviews and focus group studies, their dynamic and intermingling interaction with water was evident as their daily life is based on the circulation of the water. They use water by ditches mainly for irrigation purposes in a collective way in regular turns, like their ancestors did for hundreds of years. The way these ditches are used is central to the subsistence of 4 villages and 18 quarters located in the valley, resulting in a strong 'hydrosocial cycle'. However, two HEPP projects already constructed and three others in progress take water away from these people with a dramatic intrusion in their 'isolated' hydrological cycle by capturing it in pipes.