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Abstract
The authors explore the transformation of common lands in Spain in the second half of the 20th Century, when the nation experienced significant structural and political changes. If the 19th Century was defined by privatisation of common lands, the 20th Century experienced slight growth, but there were differences among the regions. Although the legal definition and classification of common lands is fixed, and was determined by the municipal entity, new formulas (such as the montes vecinales en mano común regulated in 1968) appeared to solve the tension between the state and local control. Ultimately, flexibility was the main characteristic of the regulations which allowed for adapting uses to a diversity of regional circumstances. Along with the productive and environmental regulations, the use of common lands for social purposes through the distribution of plots for cultivation was emphasised. Nevertheless, at the end of the 20th Century Spanish legislation concerning common lands was more focused on earlier norms than on the future.
Highlights
Many types of common land exist in Spain in present times, most of the works focusing on the history of the commons in this country analyse only the period between the 19th Century and 1936, that is usually taken as a watershed in Spanish economic and social history
Common lands in Spain have survived the major structural change that the country experienced in the second half of the 20th Century, but have been reinforced by legislation
After liberal economics advocated privatisation of most common lands in the 19th Century, in the 20th Century the legislative process first limited the scope of privatisation, and gradually recognised the importance of communal ownership, and providing increased legal security
Summary
Many types of common land exist in Spain in present times, most of the works focusing on the history of the commons in this country analyse only the period between the 19th Century and 1936 (the Spanish Civil War), that is usually taken as a watershed in Spanish economic and social history. Bricolage practices include aggregation (“recombination of newly introduced institutions and locally embedded institutions”), alteration (adaptation of institutions) and articulation (“claiming of traditional identities and culture and the rejection of newly introduced institutions”) (Koning 2014; Cleaver and Koning 2015) Taking this into account, perhaps Spanish legislation reflects an effort to totally control the management and use of the common lands. Some works which study rural areas and commons in a historical perspective, emphasise the fact that enforcement of central laws on commons in Spain had been quite lax, allowing different regions with different economic and social features to apply the laws in different ways (Gallego et al 2010) This opens a new series of questions to be answered: did those practices continue in the second half of the 20th Century?
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