‘Like an act of God’: Land, water and social power in northern Pakistan1

Abstract

This article uses a case study of the Salinity Control and Reclamation Project of Mardan, northern Pakistan, to critically examine how the impact of a rural infrastructure project designed to improve water delivery can be compromised by the distribution of land ownership. The article demonstrates that the positive impact of infrastructural investment on farm yields can be translated into much more limited gains in income when farmers must rent land in order to establish viable farms. The design of infrastructural investment must therefore integrate an understanding of the social and economic environment within which the investment is made. In particular, the ownership and control of land, and hence the structure of social power, must be evaluated.