Struggle For Land Research Articles

Demographic pressure as a factor in inter-ethnic conflicts: evidence from Colombia

ABSTRACT This article explores the link between demographic pressure and inter-ethnic conflicts. Relying on a mixed-methods approach applied to the paradigmatic case of the Cauca region of Colombia, we argue that demographic pressure can play an important role in explaining a recent wave of conflicts between indigenous, mestizo peasant and Afro-Colombian communities. We find that increasing population density within indigenous territories (resguardos) increases the probability of conflict, and that this effect is most acute in resguardos with limited agricultural area. We also describe the complexities of claims and strategies linked to these conflicts and the impact on social relationships and livelihoods. We advocate for a more holistic understanding of land struggles, one that moves the discussion beyond territorial recognition for indigenous peoples and engages with the multiple challenges ethnic communities are facing, including demographic pressure, land scarcity, environmental fragility and endemic poverty and marginalization.

Climate-related loss and damage in contexts of agrarian change: differentiated sense of loss from extreme weather events in northeast Cambodia

The uneven burden of climate-related losses and damages and its implications for equity and social justice are receiving growing attention in science and policy. Smallholder farmers, indigenous groups, and ethnic minorities are often identified as particularly vulnerable and likely to experience a greater burden of climate-related loss and damage. However, limited attention has been paid to experiences of climate-related loss and damage in contexts of agrarian change and related struggles, especially around land. In this paper, we analyse experiences of climate-related loss amongst smallholder farmers in Ratanakiri province, northeast Cambodia. We derive an analytical framework from political economy of vulnerability and sociology of loss to explain farmers’ sense of loss from climate change and foreground intangible dimensions of climate-related loss. We use a mixed-methods approach with a hierarchical regression analysis of a household survey (n = 295), individual interviews, and focus group discussions across eleven villages. We find that a higher number of livelihood activities, greater values related to land, types of negative impacts experienced, and stronger perception of changes in extreme weather events are associated with a greater sense of loss. Meanwhile, a higher ability to repay loans and secure land tenure is associated with a lower sense of loss. Our results demonstrate how experiential, relational, and normative dimensions of climate-related loss are co-produced through processes of agrarian change such as financialization and histories of land struggles (i.e. through debt failure and fear of loss of access to land). This study contributes a deeper understanding of people’s lived experiences of loss arising from climate change impacts in agrarian contexts and their implications for climate justice.

Bifurcated Bolivia: Indigenous Governance and Land Struggles in the Eastern Lowlands

This paper analyzes Indigenous politics in Bolivia, the 2019 coup against President Evo Morales, and the return of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) with the inauguration of Luis Arce in 2020. Drawing on interviews with Indigenous community members in the lowlands of the Bolivian Amazon, this piece theoretically situates Indigenous autonomy struggles within world systems theory and insights from Max Weber’s ‘iron cage’ of institutional isomorphism to argue that political tensions in Bolivian Indigenous communities can be understood within a context of (1) increasingly strained relations between the MAS and civil society organizations; (2) Indigenous-NGO coalition efforts to protect Tierras Comunitarias de Orígen (Native Community Lands) and; (3) the development of competing parallel leadership organizations within Native communities that threaten democratic processes and cohesive responses to extractivism.

Land struggles, livelihoods, and trajectories of agrarian change in the Polochic valley, Guatemala

ABSTRACT This article assesses the impact of political contestation on trajectories of agrarian change in the Polochic valley, Guatemala. Livelihood surveys were carried out in four Indigenous Maya-Q’eqchi’ agrarian communities, two of which obtained access to land as a direct outcome of grassroots resistance to land grabbing. By situating livelihood strategies within the broader political economy, I argue that political contestation has inadvertently reproduced a functionally dualist agrarian structure that sustains the agroexport plantation economy while leaving little potential for expanded reproduction among campesino households. Agrarian social movements must look beyond land access alone to achieve the transformative change they seek.

Labour Abroad as a Struggle for Land: Young Migrants’ Dream of a Rural Return to Myanmar

Labour Abroad as a Struggle for Land: Young Migrants’ Dream of a Rural Return to Myanmar

The Land and its People: The South African ‘Land Question’ and the Post-Apartheid Political Order

Why is it that South Africa’s ‘land question’ is so stubbornly resistant to resolution? This think piece re-examines 30 years of debate, concentrating on the disjuncture between the discourses of policy deliberation and those of contentious politics in debates about land in South Africa. It argues that the South African land debate as it unfolds in the public realm is best understood as a displaced discourse indirectly addressing the terms of political belonging and the nature of the post-apartheid political order. Far from being a distraction, this is a challenge that urgently needs to be confronted in its own terms. Drawing on the work of Ivor Chipkin, the paper argues that confronting the crisis of the post-apartheid political order requires a rethinking of the terms in which national identity is conceived. The paper explores the possibilities and challenges facing a politics of belonging centred on the Constitutional invocation of a political community ‘for all who live in it’ and what this might imply for a more constructive and productive engagement with land struggles in urban and rural South Africa.

Unorchestrated Symphony: documenta fifteen as a Site of Resistance

documenta fifteen (d15) was held in Kassel, Germany from June to September 2022, and sparked heated media attention and critical discussions before, during, and after the exhibition. With the indigenous curatorial concept of lumbung, the artistic directors, ruangrupa, a Jakarta-based artist collective, brought a new corpus of artists, artist collectives, artistic projects, and cosmologies largely from the global south to d15. Notwithstanding its decentralised curatorial method and rhizomatic exhibition structure, many critiques of d15 continue to take a top-down approach, focusing on its overarching structure, curatorial discourse, the curators’ trajectory, collective methodology, and the context of international mega-exhibitions. With a bottom-up approach and a lumbung community perspective, this essay examines some of the lumbung practices, including but not limited to social gatherings with feasts and festivals, struggles for land and natural resources, and women and queer groups’ practices. The essay argues that, in spite of challenges and limitations, the lumbung community have enabled d15 to become a site of resistance to colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy, a proposition that aligns with the initial vision for d15.

O diabo no meio do redemoinho: a dialética destruição - produção do capitalismo rural em Alagoas

In this essay, we reflect on the ambivalences of capitalist expansion in rural areas. If large extractive enterprises, investing in symbols of "modernity", point out their income as a consequence of technological innovations, we draw attention to the way the dynamics of extractive accumulation operates by dispossession. On the one hand, we focus on the degradation of nature, workers and ways of life, carried out by such enterprises; on the other, on the small daily resistances of peasants and workers in this process. For this, we mobilized the peasant imaginary about the figure of the devil, from fieldwork (interviews and conversations held in camps and settlements of struggle for land) and film production, adopting the pact with the devil as a metaphor for expansion.

The struggle for land in coastal Ecuador during the PAIS alliance pink-tide governments: trapped in patronage, corruption, and violence

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the barriers that peasant associations faced to access seized land in Hacienda Las Mercedes through the Plan Tierras. I argue that the mobilization for land transited between an undemocratic state that has historically served the agrarian elite and a state impregnated by patronage, corruption and violent practices that wrested autonomy from and divided peasant organizations to prevent the effective distribution of seized hacienda land. Persistent peasant mobilization illustrates how the struggle for land was also a struggle against a state apparatus that continued to serve the interests of the agrarian elite eager to recover its former properties.

Pemberdayaan Kelompok Nelayan dalam Membudidayakan Kerang Dara sebagai Pendapatan Ekonomi Rakyat di Kampung Nelayan Belawan 1 Medan

This research is a field survey and a group of Belawan fishermen with the aim of providing training on how fishermen can cultivate kerrang from the area where they live. This service also involves 5 groups of kerrang dara cultivators, where their economic life depends on the livelihood of kerrang dara, and dedication This changes them from searching for kerrang in the sea to now being able to cultivate them in their own yard, so that there is no struggle for land where the kerrang live.

PROBLEMS OF GROWTH OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES IN CHINA

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problems of alternative energy in China. Ensuring economic growth is achieved by stable and sufficient supplies of energy to the needs of industry. Geopolitical tensions give rise to the development of national energy resources and, above all, renewable energy sources, development of which has a number of issues. A detailed examination of the 14th Five-Year (2021–2025) Energy Plan revealed challenges to China’s energy goals. Firstly, the main issue of alternative generation is the high level of «losses», i.e. the need to balance energy production with its consumption. The unevenness of energy production throughout the day, the lack of high-power batteries, as well as high-voltage lines for energy transmission, heighten this problem. Secondly, the struggle for land gives rise to competition with agriculture, construction and industrial sectors. Thirdly, alternative energy generation faces the problem of its insufficient efficiency (characterized by the ratio of energy production/ installed capacity, as well as energy density), which leads to reduction in subsidies and the replacement of renewable energy sources with more efficient, but currently less developed reserves of unconventional gas in China. The problem of subsidies is partly solved by the introduction of «green» financing as well as financing from special funds (AIIB, Silk Road Fund, NDB), that allows the implementation of distributed generation projects by attracting investor funds, as well as supporting promising energy production technologies. Most of the shortcomings relate to renewable energy sources, so China is actively developing other areas – nuclear generation, hydrogen production, and optimizing energy flows between inner regions.

Squeezed between Land and Water: Rupture, Frontier-Making, and Resource Conflicts at Cambodia's Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Dam

Hydropower dam projects in the Lower Mekong Basin are part of long-term and interactive land and water transformations, displacement, and violence. Within these ongoing processes, dams represent intense and adverse episodes of disruption that escalate nature-society transformations. Drawing on research at Cambodia's Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Dam (LS2 Dam), we examine how such episodes of nature-society rupture catalyze new waves of frontier-making and mobility that further intensify land and resource struggles. 1 In this ethnically diverse landscape, the abrupt hydrological changes caused by the LS2 Dam have escalated land struggles among various ethnic groups, especially migrants intent on claiming land and water resources, and Indigenous/minority groups displaced by the dam. We show how historical relations with land and socio-political marginalization by the state have produced differentiated opportunities, risks, and frictions among the four main ethnic groups present in this landscape: Indigenous Bunong, Lao, Cham, and Khmer. The LS2 Dam case shows how nature-society rupture reifies frontier dynamics by disrupting existing land/water relations, which precipitates in-migration, new resource claims, and associated conflict along ethnic lines.

The struggle for land by indigenous groups: from conflict to cooperation in Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, Indonesia

Abstract This study discusses the perspective of a positive-sum game in land conflicts involving indigenous groups. It is based on a case study using qualitative methods in the Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, an indigenous group in Indonesia. Findings show the perspective enables collaborative resource management for conflict resolution. Semi-legal agreements reduce uncertainty, prevent violence, and provide opportunities for the group to earn livelihoods along with forest conservation. These are enabled by the principle of mutual respect as the rule in use by all parties. Certain limitations are still associated with the outcomes, which indicate the need for a more equitable, written, and permanent settlement. Decentralizing conflict resolution to the local level can lead to innovative solutions if the interactions among all actors are based on the principle of mutual respect and a commitment to prevent violence.

Socio-economic geography and the land rights of indigenous peoples in Paraguay

AbstractThe article investigates the long-term tendencies of Paraguayan political-economy, in particular the mounting impacts of export-oriented agribusiness on its indigenous peoples. The analysis is based on the theorisation of the geographical force of subtraction, that is, the evanescent properties of capitalist development, in which economic growth takes place via an interconnected elimination of rights, opportunities and alternatives. The discussion is focussed on the land struggle of the Paĩ Tavyterã in the northeast of Paraguay and members of the same ethnic group who live in Brazil (called Guarani-Kaiowa). It is a relational narrative that draws insights from various actors, communities and situations. The main conclusions are that, despite the fact that Paraguay is now a major exporter of agribusiness commodities, what has prevailed is the accumulation of multiple forms of political, environmental, social and economic violence. At the same time, the decolonising reaction of indigenous peoples, in alliance with other sectors of the working class, aims at reverting the deficit caused by systemic socio-economic subtraction and in pursuit of transformative additions.

Coding regimes of possession. An essay on land, property, and law

ABSTRACT Regimes of possession are constituted by rules of property. This includes the asset, rights subjects, and institutions of public authority. They are all coded in specific ways, and they connect to each other. When governments engage with land, they recode the constituent parts of the regime, engaging in property, subject, and even state formation. Yet, in a context of legal and institutional pluralism, many institutions and actors with varying degrees of relative autonomy and legitimacy make up the field of land struggle. All engage in coding of possession. Governments, claim to act within the law when they grant or dispossess citizens of land. Likewise, people aim to legitimate land claims through reference to law in creative ways. Examples show how different repertoires of legalization conspire with efforts to recode different constituent elements of possession into dispossession.

Comic journalism in the context of Latin American social movements and resistance

This paper offers an analytical, conceptual and contextual review of comic journalism in Latin America, mainly focused on those proposals linked to the social movements and resistance struggles. The approach is from the theory of the comic social, mostly comic journalism. Methodologically, the topic of analysis is used, the artistic-journalistic approach of form and substance, and the objectives of comic journalism projects. As a result, it can be seen that comic book-web journalism work linked to Latin American social movements and resistance, is divided into two main areas: recovery of memory-testimony, and work aimed at activism, visibility and documentation of active social struggles in the Latin American region. Violence, disappearance and forced displacement, repression, struggles for land, water, life and feminist movements are some of the approaches that comic journalism have in Latin America.

TERRITORIES IN TRANSFORMATION: CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES IN SUSTAINABLE SPACE PLANNING AND PLANNING

This article addresses the importance of territorial planning and ordering, highlighting the influence of works such as "Right to participation in urban policies: advances after 15 years of city statute", "For Another Globalization: From Single Thought to Universal Consciousness" and "Experiences in Urban Territorial Planning in Latin America: the context of Brazil”. The understanding of territory as a dynamic product of social actions highlights territorialization as intrinsic to the reorganization of territorial information and social stratification. The analysis of power relations, according to Raffestin and Saquet, reveals political-ideological conflicts in the territory. Settlements, as products of complex power relations, highlight the struggle for land and social inequalities. The rational management of natural resources, aligned with sustainability, is vital to balance environmental preservation and social equity. The main objective of the article is to analyze the resistance of the settlers, highlighting their difficulties and exploring the potential of public policies to improve their living conditions, contributing to the understanding of the dynamics of territorial planning.

BETWEEN FORGETFULNESS AND MEMORY: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE IDENTITY OF THE XOCÓ PEOPLE, BRAZIL, THROUGH ORALITY

This paper analyzes the reconstruction of the indigenous identity of the Xocó people through orality. It starts from the following hypothesis: the oral memories of the struggle for territory contribute to the collective identity reconstruction. To test this hypothesis, a literature review on indigenous identity and the historical context of Xocó people in the struggle for territory is conducted in the initial phase, which is necessary for the second part of the study, that analyzes narratives from six Xocó interviewees in field research conducted within the community. By transcribing the memories, three categories of analysis are developed using content analysis methodology, which allows to conclude that the memories of the land struggle preserve the history of slavery and the suppression of indigenous traits, while territorial reclamation restores the Xocó people's identity. Finally, oral transmission between generations revitalizes Xocó culture, shaping their way of life.

Policing tenancy: the struggle for housing and land in Los Angeles

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the role of state power, specifically policing, in the precaritization of tenancy. By focusing on nuisance abatement lawsuits, we demonstrate how the state intervenes in landlord-tenant relations to render tenants as nuisance and subject them to containment and removal. We interpret the dialectics of containment and removal as an important part of the struggle over land. If tenancy has typically been understood in relation to rent extraction, we are concerned with the relationship between tenancy and state-organized land grabs. The paper thus focuses on two conjunctures of redevelopment in Los Angeles. We further argue that while the legal-bureaucratic archives of state power rarely record tenant struggles, it is crucial to understand the tenant as a political subject. Through close attention to tenant struggles, and the community histories thereof, we demonstrate the hard-won, but fragile, victories achieved by tenants in the face of redevelopment.

Capitalist development and land struggles in Africa: the role of engaged scholarship

The expansion of capitalism into Africa induced significant transformations of African societies which have continued to influence what people on the continent do today. Africa’s encounter with capital, though still limited in scope, has always been ruthless, coercive and violent, as displayed in the slave trade, colonial occupation and current neocolonial incursions. Although some political economy analysts have suggested that capitalism in Africa has not exploited Africans enough, this article shows that the encounter with capitalism on the continent has been, and continues to be, vicious, with its brutality often obscured by its stunted nature. The article draws on Lungisile Ntsebeza’s work on land to show that engaged scholarship can play a critical role in unveiling the mechanisms and nature of capitalist exploitation and brutality in Africa, often masked by weak capitalist penetration. Using examples of current land struggles, it shows that capitalist exploitation in Africa is not only limited to those engaged in capitalist relations of production (wage labour) but extends to people outside these relations.