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- Convenors:
-
Yuezhou Yang
(London School of Economics)
Carolin Dieterle (LSE)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Global methodologies
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
How and why does research on land matter in times of major social, economic and political changes? This panel aims to 'unsettle' academic debates and extensive research on land-related issues by reflecting on, rethinking, and reimagining new agendas for land-related research, policy, and practice.
Long Abstract:
How and why does research on land governance and tenure matter in these times of major social change? For decades, researchers have demonstrated how land is central to issues of development, including agrarian change, constitutional and economic reform, politics, social justice, post-conflict reconstruction, adaptation to climate change, and, more recently, landscape restoration, land-based investments and the question of decolonizing development. This panel aims to 'unsettle' this extensive body of research by reflecting on, rethinking, and reimagining new agendas for land-related research, policy, and practice. We intentionally frame this objective broadly, to explicitly acknowledge the fundamentally cross-cutting nature of land vis-à-vis development.
We welcome papers across all disciplines and geographical areas which speak to this theme of 'unsettling' land debates. Papers may focus on key historical or political dimensions of land questions, grounded within pertinent literatures and debates. Particular emphasis will be given to papers engaging with the changing and evolving nature of political, institutional and legal contexts of land governance, and the emergence of new actors. We also welcome papers engaging with the land policy and practice space, particularly given the role of official development assistance spending in current research funding. We further encourage papers considering topics, novel data sources and methodological approaches so far largely unexplored in research on land. For instance, how does climate action impact on tenure rights and land policies in different countries? How might accelerating environmental change, biodiversity loss, and a global pandemic redefine tenure security in the longer-term, in both urban and rural contexts?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 July, 2021, -Mnqobi Ngubane (University of Johannesburg) Enrique Castañón Ballivián (SOAS, University of London) George Mudimu (MUAST) Melanie Sommerville (NMBU) Ruth Hall (University of the Western Cape)
Paper short abstract:
Reverse rentals denote the renting out of redistributed farmland by beneficiaries to fragments of agrarian capital. In this article we outline reverse rental typologies, and theorise the impoverished land property on redistributed farmland in Zimbabwe, Brazil, Bolivia, South Africa, and Canada.
Paper long abstract:
Since the turn of the 21st reverse rentals have become a burgeoning feature of agrarian change in the global South. Reverse rentals denote the renting out of redistributed farmland by land reform beneficiaries to fragments of agrarian capital. A growing number of critical agrarian scholars have identified cases of reverse land rentals that seem to support a conceptualization of impoverished landed property in the global South. This is within contexts of market-driven redistributive land reforms in the global South and attendant creation, and reproduction of reverse rentals as the impoverished landed property in these spaces experience capital constrains that curtail expanded agricultural reproduction. Reverse rentals on redistributed farmland are occurring in Zimbabwe, Brazil, Bolivia, South Africa, and amongst aboriginal communities of Canada. In these spaces, land reform beneficiaries rent out redistributed land to fragments of agrarian capital. Through a comparative study, the present intervention theorises intersections of reverse land rentals and social reproduction among land reform beneficiaries. Methodologically, the study draws on emerging empirical findings through intersecting lenses of critical agrarian studies, agrarian political economy, and property theory. In particular, we probe intersections of land rent income and social reproduction, and manifestations of these in differentiated land holding entities such as communal versus individualised land tenure, and implications for property theory in land reform. In terms of policy implications, the article highlights the need to rethink redistributive land reforms in the neoliberal epoch and the deepening of market relations in post land reform localities.
Natalia Perez (Simon Fraser University)
Paper short abstract:
This article proposes the conceptualization of the “formality model,” an entangled set of discourses that enact formality as a modern and sine-qua-non component of property conducive to security and argues that it poses a constrain to challenge current deeply unequal agrarian structures.
Paper long abstract:
Land administration policies situate formalization as a precondition for ‘development’ and poverty reduction in the Global South. Sponsored by multilateral organizations and international agencies worldwide, land administration policies have become a crucial component of neoliberal development. Critical development and critical agrarian studies scholarships have extensively documented the problematic relations between these policies and capitalist accumulation, land grabbing, and land dispossession. However, these critiques have taken for granted the meaning and stability of the notion of property across different geographies and temporalities. This article draws from critical legal studies and legal geography scholarships that center property and highlight its intrinsic relationality. It introduces the conceptualization of the “formality model”, an entangled set of discourses that draws on a teleological view of property to enact formality as a modern and sine-qua-non component of property conducive to security. This article focus on an emblematic case of the Colombian land restitution policy (LRP), a progressive land administration policy, to examine how the formality model is productive of and produced through legal, administrative, spatial and mundane everyday practices of property that go into the policy. This study argues that the formality model poses a severe constrain to the Colombian campesinxs’ possibilities to maintain control over land and to contest current deeply unequal agrarian structures, as it obscures the violence and exclusions embedded in the everyday practices of land administration policies, which should be considered a key site of scholarly scrutiny.
Catherine Boone (LSE) Mah Aristide Dion (Université Laval) Arsene Brice Bado (CERAP Universite Jesuite) Zibo Irigo (CERAP)
Paper short abstract:
This paper tackles the apparent puzzle of friction around rural land certification. We study Côte d'Ivoire's rocky history of land certification from 2004 to 2017 to identify political economy variables that may give rise to heterogenous and even conflicting preferences around certification.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2000, many African countries have adopted land tenure reforms that aim at comprehensive land registration (or certification) and titling. Much work in political science and in the advocacy literature identifies recipients of land certificates or titles as 'program beneficiaries,' and political scientists have modeled titling programs as a form of distributive politics. In practice, however, rural land registration programs are often divisive and difficult to implement. This paper tackles the apparent puzzle of friction around rural land certification. We study Côte d'Ivoire's rocky history of land certification from 2004 to 2017 to identify political economy variables that may give rise to heterogenous and even conflicting preferences around certification. Regional inequalities, social inequalities, and regional variation in pre-existing land tenure institutions are factors that help account for friction or even resistance around land titling, and thus the difficult politics that may arise around land tenure reform. Land certification is not a public good or a private good for everyone.
Zhenqian Huang (College of Humanities and Development Studies,China Agricultural University)
Paper short abstract:
The effects of decentralization(e.g., decentralization of taxation) on economic development received lots of attention while the political impact of decentralization yet to be examined. In this paper, I use Kenya's 2013 land decentralization as a case to investigate its impact on local legitimacy.
Paper long abstract:
I will take 2013 land decentralization in Kenya as a cut-off point to investigate its impact on local legitimacy (measured by citizen's support for governments). Afrobarometer data (geocoded) will provide information about local support for the government and also the time and spatial variation before and after the decentralization. In this paper, I will test whether land decentralization strengthens or undermines the legitimacy of the government.