Abstract
This article describes the “logic” on which the system of water distribution among the cultivators of southern Pakistani Baluchistan (Makran) is founded. The aim of this work is not strictly “ethnographic”, in that it not only explains the logic of a system that until today had not been understood correctly; in fact it also tries to show the importance of the system in “synchronizing” the agricultural activities in regard to the distribution of water among the share-holders according to the kind of crops raised at different times of the year. At the same time, however, this article suggests that such a synchronization is accomplished by a process of “desynchronization”, which results from agreements reached on an individual basis by the share-holders. And it also shows that these agreements allow individuals to elude the formal logic of the system in order to cope with the necessities imposed by the “concreteness” of social life, without impinging on the “logic” of the system as a whole.
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