Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Political and Economic Impacts of Land Registration and Titling Efforts

土地掠夺，通过这一过程，以前的公共资产被私有化和收购，特别是在农村地区，在世界上美国具有战略经济和政治利益的地区产生了重大影响。科学研究探讨了政府一级进行这种投机性投资的动机，但对土地登记和所有权授予做法中财产正式化的过程的关注要少得多。这个项目，它训练毕业生在严格的方法，科学的实地考察，考察了历史上不同的，有时竞争，土地登记和所有权的做法影响的背景。除了提供资金培训一名研究生，使其掌握严格的、以实践为基础的科学实地考察方法外，还将开发这一案例研究的结果，并与国际学者和组织分享，从而加强国际科学合作。 约翰霍普金斯大学博士生Paul Kohlbry在Deborah Poole博士的指导下，将对西岸的土地登记工作进行人种学和历史研究。他将探讨约旦、以色列和巴勒斯坦权力机构的土地登记项目如何确立了私有财产并改变了农村地区的政治和经济生活。这项研究依靠约旦档案中的数据、巴勒斯坦村庄的口述历史、与官员、律师、商人和土地登记人员的访谈以及对正在进行的土地登记项目的观察。他的假设是，约旦和以色列的土地登记使私有财产成为围绕农业土地所有权的民族主义政治冲突的核心。然而，巴勒斯坦农业生产在过去几十年中长期下降，降低了农业的经济和政治意义。这项研究有助于了解巴勒斯坦权力机构目前的土地所有权工作是如何在围绕农业用地销售的地方和国家冲突的背景下展开的，并改变了巴勒斯坦政府与其臣民之间以及以色列人与巴勒斯坦人之间的关系。通过仔细关注构成土地登记的各种过程，他的研究试图扩大目前关于土地私有化和土地变革的社会科学文献。这项研究还加深了我们对巴勒斯坦和中东的了解，并采用了一种侧重于经济而不是文化或宗教因素的方法。最后，它揭示了以色列-巴勒斯坦冲突的世俗，日常法律的，社会和技术方面的新情况，这些方面往往被学者和政策制定者所忽视。

Land grabs, the process through which formerly public assets are privatized an acquired, particularly in rural areas, have had significant impacts in areas of the world in which the U.S. has a strategic economic and political interest. Scientific research has explored the motivations for such speculative investments at the government level, but there has been significantly less focus on the process through which property is formalized in land registration and titling practices. This project, which trains a graduate in methods of rigorous, empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, examines a context historically impacted by varied, and sometimes competing, land registration and titling practices. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in methods of rigorous, empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, findings from this case study would be developed and shared with international scholars and organizations, thereby increasing international scientific cooperation. Johns Hopkins University doctoral student Paul Kohlbry, with the direction of Dr. Deborah Poole, will undertake an ethnographic and historical study of land registration efforts in the West Bank. He will explore the ways in which Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian Authority land registration projects have instituted private property and transformed political and economic life in rural areas. This research relies on data from the Jordanian archives, oral histories in Palestinian villages, interviews with bureaucrats, lawyers, businessmen and land registration personnel, and observation of an ongoing land registration project. His hypothesis is that Jordanian and Israeli land registration made private property central to nationalist political conflicts which revolved around the ownership of agricultural land. However, the long decline of agricultural production in Palestine over the past decades has lessened agriculture's economic and political significance. The research contributes to understanding how current land titling efforts by the Palestinian Authority unfold in the context with local and national conflicts around the sale of agricultural land and transform the relationship between the Palestinian government and its subjects and between Israelis and Palestinians. By giving careful attention to the various processes that constitute land registration, his research seeks to expand current social science literature on land privatization and agrarian change. This study also deepens our understanding of Palestine and the Middle East and adopts a methodology that focuses on economic, rather than cultural or religious factors. Finally, it sheds new light on the mundane, everyday legal, social and technical aspects of the Israel-Palestine conflict that are often missed by scholars and policy makers.