The Tempo of Water

Abstract

During the Mandate period, Palestinian rural communities often shared their water sources proportionally in time-based rotations. Water use functioned as a temporal marker, embedded in the tempo of daily life. This article contrasts this way of distributing water with that of Zionist settlers and the British Mandatory administration, which typically measured water use in terms of volume. Volume-based measures, used by the British and by Zionist settlers, facilitated the commodification of water, transforming it into an object of investment for the development of colonial infrastructure, most notably irrigation and electricity. Time-based rotations, in contrast, were anchored in the movement of the sun and planets, seasonality (dry vs. wet season), and the needs of the community as a whole. The two approaches reflect different ways of relating to the environment and the natural world. Therefore, Zionist dispossession of water resources was not merely material, but it disrupted communal practices and obscured their associated temporalities.