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- Convenors:
-
Jennifer Day
(The University of Melbourne)
Monica Minnegal (University of Melbourne)
Barbara Andersen (Massey University)
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- Discussant:
-
Benedicta Rousseau
(University of Melbourne)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Thursday 25 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney
Short Abstract:
This panel asks how people think about the nation as they negotiate uses of urbanised land. We invite papers from any geographies where custom mingles with introduced law, to describe how relational and categorical identities are mobilised in narratives about urban life, dispossession, and change.
Long Abstract:
This panel asks how people think about the nation as they negotiate uses of urbanised land in places when custom forms part of governance. In particular, we ask how people balance notions of nation against the 'right to the city'.
Cities, as sites of state power, pull into relief the tensions between nationhood and urbanisation. People without a customary claim to urban land are beginning to demand governance that recognises their place in the city - while at the same time valuing national narratives of indigenous landownership and customary governance. The idea of the nation, then, adapts and shifts in urban spaces. The relevance of the national narrative may be different for those autochthonous populations with an acknowledged birthright to the city, compared to those who must negotiate a right to the city by buying in or using custom.
We take an expanded interpretation of the term, nation, referring to narratives of national identity and sub-national or territorial identities. At the same time, we recognise the importance of the institutional apparatus of statehood: courts, laws, police, and government departments - the elements that mediate between and sometimes conflict with national identities. We recognise, too, that similar contradictions may be in play at other scales, wherever a central place (camp, village, town, city) emerges as the locus for aspirational futures.
We invite papers from any geographies where custom mingles with introduced law and institutions, to describe how relational and categorical identities are mobilised in narratives about urban life, dispossession, and change.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 25 November, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Across Melanesia cities and peri-urban areas are increasingly sites of contestation and negotiation between the power of the state, the idea of custom landownership and the need for other settlers to access land and services available in urban locales.
Paper long abstract:
Slowly we exit our truck and walk over to the ‘security guards’ blocking the entry to the large area of customary land at the edge of the village that is the site of an eviction. These security guards are young men, and they slowly stand up on the back of their truck. We watch as one of the young men raises a rifle and points it in our general direction. It is clear he does not want us here.
Across Melanesia cities and peri-urban areas are increasingly sites of contestation and negotiation between the power of the state, the idea of custom landownership and the need for other settlers to access land and services available in urban locales. Contemporary urban and peri-urban evictions that generate displacement offer insights into the violent expressions of force used to protect property rights and the long duree of colonial cadastral legacies. Using examples and experiences from Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands we ask: in whose interest does the state act or protect? Who is possessed or dispossessed by these processes? And what, in these processes, has happened to the aspirational ideas of Independence that Melanesian states would be post-colonial sovereign nations of landowners?
Paper short abstract:
Huli traditional land boundaries can be seen as an indigenous cadastral system that maps directly onto the state system of land title certification. As the desire for city life intensifies, Huli are radically transforming their traditional relationships to the land.
Paper long abstract:
Almost the entire Huli landscape within the highland basins of Papua New Guinea’s Hela Province has been profoundly altered by an indigenous system of land categorisation that is at least several centuries old. Known by the Huli term hameigini, or ‘father-son’, patrilineal land boundaries are inscribed in the landscape with a commitment to categorical definition and permanence that is not exceeded by institutional instruments imposed by the contemporary nation state. In some cases Huli land boundaries are even measured by licensed surveyors and given legal status on Certificates of Land Title that are able to be sold and transferred. Yet hameigini has a dual meaning and is also the foremost category of descent that grants the right of individuals to inhabit and work these bounded land holdings. Tension exists between these fixed categories and a highly fluid network of historical relationships that underpin these categorical claims. The discovery and exploitation of natural gas resources in Hela Province has accelerated a near universal desire for urbanisation and citification with the ultimate goal of transforming Hela into a Melanesian oil and gas funded equivalent of Dubai. The promise to transform Hela into a city is a galvanising vision that belies a complex descent system that has underpinned the occupation of agricultural, rather than urban landscapes. This transformation is resulting in radical changes to the ways in which Huli have traditionally negotiated their relationship to the land.
Paper short abstract:
This research explores the nature of the resettlement projects in Nanuku and Jittu squatter settlements in Suva. It also addresses questions, such as do squatters have a say or choice in the resettlement plan? And what are the promises made to them and their expectations of the new land?
Paper long abstract:
Resettling squatters is a phenomenon very rare in Fiji and have mostly targeted settlements on private land in the city boundary to farther locations on the urban periphery. There is a very fine line between squatter resettlement and eviction in Fiji, both of which often pursue a written (formal) notice to the settlers. While resettlement projects are a short-term measure, the decision to execute is long-term, adding to fear and uncertainty among squatters. Customarily, resettlement projects in Fiji are initiated by the national and local government and in conjunction with the landowners. Since 2011, the resettlement projects have been actively part of the country's squatter settlement upgrading programs. Most of the settlements identified under the resettlement projects are located in the capital city, Suva. This research discusses the residents' perception of the proposed resettlement project in two squatter communities in Suva – Nanuku and Jittu settlements, both of which are located on contested private land subject to commercial and residential development. The research explores the nature of the resettlement projects in the two case studies and addresses questions, such as do squatters have a say or choice in the resettlement plan? And what are the promises made to them and their expectation of the new land?
Paper short abstract:
Biangai use the national courts to establish their ownership of land surrounding Wau. However, unity or self-interest hinges on historic patterns of land use and alliances that make the Biangai a cultural-linguistic group. New patterns of settlement challenge their conception of identity.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how Biangai people along the Upper Bulolo River of Morobe Province in Papua New Guinea, fight to be acknowledged as traditional owners of land surrounding the urbanised township of Wau. Biangai first encountered Australian gold prospectors in the 1920s and have witnessed substantial wealth being extracted from the area since. While many original records were destroyed during battles between the Japanese and Allied forces for Wau in WWII, Biangai claims to the 6000 h.a. of land appropriated by colonial administrators and containing Wau have been recognised by the Supreme Court in 1972, in subsequent land court hearings, and most recently by the National Court in 2019. Biangai stand to gain from these decisions, but wariness characterises the Biangai alliance. The benefits from mining activities in the area have not been distributed evenly across the group. Since gold was discovered in the area, there has been a significant influx of migrants from the adjacent Waria valley and other parts of Papua New Guinea. Settlers have stayed on long after employment opportunities disappeared. Disputing Biangai claims are neighbouring Watut people, the more recent settlers in Wau, and even the government of Papua New Guinea. Following a violent conflict between Watuts and Biangai in 2009, which destroyed the Biangai village of Kaisenik, some Biangai have found a renewed collective purpose and unitary identity behind the motif ‘From Ashes We Rise’.