Anthropologie politique et gestion de l’eau en contexte pastoral. Réconfigurations socioéconomiques et identitaires chez les Garri du sud éthiopien entre Etat et ONG.

This thesis analyzes socio-economic reconfigurations among pastoral groups living in the southern Ethiopian lowlands on the border with Kenya. Forms of social organization that regulate water access are considered as the main analytical tool for understanding the socio-cultural dynamics in these regions, highlighting historical and contemporary relationships between pastoralists, state authorities and international aid actors. Our approach consists of merging two research axes: the analysis of pastoral social systems and the importance of water issues as part of a wider relationship between nature and society. The social embeddedness of water leads us to focus on the processes of ethnicity, which is used as a tool to analyze nomads’ incorporation in a national political order as well as their local strategies vis-à-vis the State. In this context, the involvement of international aid actors is examined, taking into account the history of NGO intervention and by locating development projects in a dynamic perspective of a material and symbolic negotiation.