Abstract

PERIS-ALBENTOSA, Tomás. Valencian vegetable gardens: the imperative need to update Maass, Glick and Ostrom's postulates. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2015, vol.12, n.3, pp.349-383. ISSN 1870-5472.

This paper is aimed at comparing the well-known proposals of A. Maass, T. F. Glick and E. Ostrom on the characteristics of the Valencian irrigation canals (acequias) and their hydraulic management, using information from a number of studies on the irrigation systems of this Mediterranean region published since the 1980s. In balance, the comparison shows that the explanatory core shared by the three authors (great potentiality of the local autonomy that groups of water users enjoyed, who governed the acequias and worked jointly with municipal institutions and monarchy officers) is still a fully valid theoretical proposal that can be used to guide further research. At the same time, however, it stands out that some specific aspects (such as the assumed peasant composition of irrigator communities, the democratic nature of hydraulic entities, or the extremely high stability attributed to water management institutions) should be questioned, since their validity for vegetable gardens throughout the 13th to 18th centuries cannot be confirmed.

Keywords : acequias; nesting; irrigator communities; water management; irrigation systems; Valencia.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )