Pipe Dreams: Water, Development and the Work of The Imagination in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley

Ethiopia's lower Omo valley is currently undergoing profound changes, due in part to water development interventions. The state and corporate partners are implementing large dam and irrigation schemes; missionaries are attempting to install safe water supplies. We explore the reception of these projects by local people, and their implications for intergroup relations. Water development schemes, we argue, function as technologies of the imagination, stimulating people to imagine different kinds of futures. These dynamics are illustrated through ethnographic work on the reception of new wells drilled by European missionaries in Nyangatom.