Chapter 1 introduces the main topics of the book: theories about the invention of writing systems, the role of the individual in theories of creativity, and the importance of the indigenous alphabet known as Mandombe to provide dignity to the Kongo.

Chapter 8 concludes the book by reconnecting my stories and observations from Nampula with larger theoretical debates about gender, water, and development. I group my contributions into three areas: development evaluation, development theory, and gender and development. My conclusions acknowledge the remaining big questions in these fields and provide some practical recommendations for pursuing an alternative development model.

Chapter 6 focuses on the rural water project’s (RWP’s) gender approach and analyses how women experienced the project. In the RWP, gender was approached in a superficial and technical way that did not consider the matrilineal context of Nampula nor the constraints some women faced in participating. The outcomes of the water project for women were ambivalent and could not be easily interpreted within Western development frameworks. The project gave some women more free time and allowed them to fulfil the cultural expectations of a good wife, but it also increased some women’s workloads, reduced their control over water, and created new conflicts and tensions between people. My analysis of how women’s lives changed after the handpumps focuses on women’s intersectional identities and the spatial and temporal dynamics of the water spaces. Women strategically participated and used the handpumps in ways that aligned with their own value systems, while also pushing back against the aspects of the project that disrupted their lives and social relationships.

Chapter 7 digs deeper into the gap between policy and practice by examining the culture of development. I include a wide range of actors in this description, focusing in particular on the role of the community organisers translating between development discourses and local understandings. The organisational culture of the Millennium Challenge Corporation was based on economic and technical rationalities and the high-level goals of spending money quickly, meeting infrastructure installation targets, and satisfying political constituencies. This chapter illustrates several examples of development encounters between community groups and project implementers to illuminate the misunderstandings, multiple frames of reference, and layers of interpretation that occur during these interactions. The development encounter is explained as a complex network of alliances and hierarchies among actors who pursue different, and sometimes competing, goals in separate value-laden, social, and historical organisational cultures.

Chapter 2 provides a historical look at the processes and events that shaped local perceptions of gender and development. Development invoked a variety of memories, emotions, and perspectives for the residents of Nampula. I group these understandings around three themes: development as freedom and liberty; development in terms of citizen–state relations; and development as ‘projects’. While people were generally positive about the increased stability and freedom they experienced after the civil war, they were more sceptical of development projects, which increased exponentially in the rebuilding years following the Rome General Peace Accords in 1992. People in rural Nampula interpreted the handpump within a history of colonial, state-led, and neoliberal approaches that primarily served the interests of domestic and international elites and disrupted rural social relations and livelihoods. Throughout the book, the discourses that animate development projects are in tension with those that circulate within the villages of Nampula.

Chapter 1 introduces the key themes of the book: hydro-social understandings of water, critical development approaches, women’s empowerment, and development evaluation. It also provides some reflections on my own positionality vis-à-vis the research and the water project.

In Chapter 5, I take on the question about why only a minority of people in each community used the handpumps. My answer exposes the micro and macro politics of the rural water project and the differences between the water at the well and at the handpump. The handpumps represented hybrid objects produced from an assemblage of modernisation ideologies, global development discourses, social power relations, national and local politics, and local meanings and practices. In the communities, many people felt alienated from this new type of water and the values it represented. The handpumps were framed as a neutral technology that would bring community-wide benefits, yet they were used only by people in the Frelimo political party who lived near the sites and could afford the tariffs. The handpumps entrenched existing inequalities and brought tensions between Frelimo and Renamo into the light. The outcomes of the project were broader and more ambivalent, uneven, and contingent than the project evaluation tools were designed to measure.

Chapter 3 explores the role of water in everyday life in rural Nampula before the handpumps were constructed. Based on my ethnographic data, I describe how water was used in social, ritual, and everyday contexts, and the meanings water acquired through these activities. I argue that water has much to teach us about culture and society: its flows illuminate economic systems, social values, gender roles, power dynamics, exchange networks, and a person’s status in society. I also describe how gender roles influence men’s and women’s water practices and shape notions of what it means to be a ‘good wife and mother’. My analysis devotes special attention to the experience of water collection and the social interactions that take place between women at the water site. This theme complicates the development narrative that water collection is oppressive to women and that customary water sites should be replaced by more modern ones. The rich connections between water, gender, and society are not seen or addressed in the dominant water planning models, which treat water as an economic good that can be ‘improved’ through technology.

In Chapter 4, I explore the concept of local ownership advanced in the project plans and argue that divergent perspectives of value and ownership among actors were at the heart of sustainability challenges. The Millennium Challenge Corporation sought to inspire community ownership through participation, voluntary management, and payment for water. Tensions with its neoliberal and community development approach skewed the balance of rights and responsibilities maintained by water users at rivers and wells. The project brought communities new burdens and also restricted their rights and control over the water. Likewise, the district government offices were tasked with maintaining the pumps over the long term, yet they were not consulted during the planning stages and had minimal capacity and resources. The rural water project focused on the legal/economic layers of property rights while ignoring the social practices, ideologies, and social relations that shaped the way people related to water in Nampula. The project’s attempts to commodify water were mediated by social relations in the community; water payments created conflicts between certain groups, inspired suspicion and distrust, and led to the breakdown of the water committees.