Organization and Objectives of the Regional Land Tenure Research Project

Abstract

OCIAL scientists have long discussed the feasibility of a regional approach to the study of economic and social problems but they have not as yet decisively advanced from the area of discussion to that of action. The Regional Project is an attempt to achieve this advance. It is true that valuable techniques have been developed for delineating regions and analyzing their contents but little has been accomplished in bringing the social scientists of a given region together in such a way as to pool their interests and efforts on their common problems. The Mississippi Delta, for example, extends into the three states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, yet the research personnel in these states has had little opportunity and incentive to devise a consistent and unified attack on the common problems of this area. The illustration simply points to the need, in the present era of expanding functions and interests, of a wider collaboration and a more effective method for the pooling of effort than now exists in research organization. The rice area, extending over state lines in southern Louisiana and Texas with counterparts in Arkansas, the semi-arid Low Plains in southwestern Oklahoma and Texas, the Cross Timbers area in north central Texas and Oklahoma, the Ozark-Ouachita area of the west central Arkansas and Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast area in Louisiana and Mississippi are illustrative of the same need in the region under consideration. The Regional Land Tenure Research Project hopes to bring the research personnel of the five states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana into an effective working relation centering upon the subject of land tenure. It is set up for a period of three