Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land and Livelihood Implications of Multinational Plantation Investments

这个博士论文研究项目将研究如何在发展中国家的跨国林业种植园投资的土地使用权和农村生计的影响，作为政府机构，种植园公司和农民农业社区之间的政治关系，斗争和谈判的结果。该研究项目位于环境治理的理论框架内，该框架将自然资源的使用和管理所通过的体制、监管和非正式过程概念化。 最近，发展中世界各地的大规模种植园林投资导致了有害的生计转变，以最低限度的补偿剥夺了农民的土地和资源，同时提供了不经常和低工资的就业机会。 然而，面对这些投资，一些社区得以保留对村庄领土的自治权，或者他们成功地提出了更高补偿和工资率的要求。 这篇博士论文的研究项目旨在评估如何以及为什么一些社区主张更大的控制比其他种植园投资的治理。 博士生将在老挝进行这些动态分析，老挝是一个日益市场化的经济的东南亚社会主义国家。 在过去十年中，老挝政府向外国种植园投资者开放了经济，这些投资者收购了该国20%以上的农业用地。 学生将在老挝南部进行实地考察，考察六个村庄的两家公司的种植园发展实践。 他将收集空间数据（航空照片、种植园图、土地使用图），收集档案文件本项目将在环境治理框架的基础上，通过研究如何在社会主义制度下管理大规模种植园投资的土地获取和生计影响，后社会主义、专制主义和/或发展中国家在土地和资源管理方面发挥主导作用的情况。 该项目将通过调查社会阻力如何在没有彻底社会抗议历史的专制环境中塑造资源投资治理来扩展这种理论方法。 该项目将通过提高对政策和项目的理解产生有益的影响，这些政策和项目可以设计和实施，以改善老挝和整个发展中国家大规模种植园投资的治理，使农业社区能够通过保持对村庄领土的控制来获得最大利益。 项目成果将对老挝和其他发展中国家从事土地问题工作的政府机构、发展机构和非政府组织有用。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how the land access and rural livelihood impacts of multinational forestry plantation investments in the developing world are governed as a result of political relationships, struggles, and negotiations among government agencies, plantation companies, and peasant farming communities. The research project is situated within the theoretical framework of environmental governance, which conceptualizes the institutional, regulatory and the informal processes through which natural resources are used and managed. Recent, large-scale plantation forestry investments across the developing world have induced detrimental livelihood transformations, dispossessing peasants of their land and resources with minimal compensation while providing infrequent and low-wage employment. Some communities have been able to retain autonomy over village territory in the face of such investments, however, or they have successfully made demands for higher compensation and wage rates. This doctoral dissertation research project seeks to assess how and why some communities assert greater control over the governance of plantation investments than others. The doctoral student will conduct an analysis of these dynamics in Laos, a Southeast Asian socialist country with an increasingly market-oriented economy. Over the past decade, the Lao government has opened the economy to foreign plantation investors, who have acquired more than 20 percent of the country's agricultural land. The student will conduct fieldwork in southern Laos, examining plantation development practices of two firms in six villages. He will collect spatial data (aerial photographs, plantation maps, land use maps), collect archival documents (concession agreements, survey reports), and conduct semi-structured interviews with government officials, plantation managers, village chiefs, and village households.This project will build on the environmental governance framework by examining how the land access and livelihood impacts of large-scale plantation investments are governed in socialist, post-socialist, authoritarian, and/or developing country contexts where the state plays a dominant role in land and resource management. The project will extend this theoretical approach by investigating how social resistance shapes resource investment governance in authoritarian contexts that do not have histories of outright social protest. The project will have beneficial impacts by enhancing understanding of the policies and projects that can be devised and implemented to improve the governance of large-scale plantation investments in Laos and throughout the developing world in ways that enable farming communities to gain maximum benefits by maintaining control over village territory. Project results will be useful for government offices, development agencies, and non-governmental organizations working on land issues in Laos and in other developing nations. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.