South Asian Ports and Water Scarcity in the Eyes of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century European Visitors

Abstract

Abstract This article addresses problems of freshwater scarcity in port cities in the wider Indian Ocean region in the early modern era. It focuses on the historical dimensions of an urgent problem, namely the unequal access to and distribution of water in an increasingly globalized world. Focusing on European travelogues (mainly from Germany, England and France), I argue that these observers discussed structures of conflict and collective action regarding natural resources because they faced similar issues in their home countries. They recorded the particular spatial orders of port cities that were often arranged according to structures of water supply, different relations of power with regard to water management and finally the coping strategies of Europeans and local populations when it came to the uses and distribution practices of fresh water. The observations of European visitors cannot be taken as an accurate picture, since they are shaped by their own experiences and reflect their education and mindsets, their possible access to certain information and their expectations of a possible readership at home. Nonetheless the authors knew that water shortages made a degree of co-operation among seemingly distinct groups necessary.