Doctoral Dissertation Research: Land Access, Agrarian Relations, and the State

由该奖项资助的研究解决了这样一个问题：当农民传统上拥有使用权的国有土地被农业综合企业项目夺走时，他们会发生什么。将国有土地用于商业农业以及与之相关的对农村居民的剥夺构成了一个可以追溯到几个世纪前的普遍现象。但是，在当今这个相互联系更加紧密的世界里，对“土地掠夺”的社会科学研究才刚刚开始。研究人员问道，今天是如何界定和划定国家和公共土地的？谁可以使用它们，用于什么目的？当地人的反应如何？这一切告诉我们，当代治理形式和公民身份的本质是什么？为了回答这些问题，研究人员已经确定了这些过程活跃的区域，并且可以在它们发展时进行检查。通过对一个关于土地的政治和文化纠纷案例的密切调查，本研究将提供一个独特的窗口，以了解当代世界紧急国家转型和私人和公共定义的变化。这项研究将由纽约城市大学人类学博士生胡里奥·阿里亚斯·瓦内加斯负责，他的导师是马克·埃德尔曼博士。Arias为这个项目确定的活动地点是哥伦比亚冲突后的Altillanura地区。Arias将在哥伦比亚的不同地点进行为期12个月的实地调查，通过多种方法收集数据，包括文件分析、口述历史、访谈和参与者观察。他将重点讨论两个不同但相互关联的案例：(a)一个国家财产的案例，该财产曾经是一个重要的区域农业研究中心的所在地，现在各种团体都声称对其拥有权利；(b)正在兴起的地方主义农业运动，在将特定土地指定为baldíos（空置的公共土地）的问题上，与州立法发生了冲突。对这些案例的研究将使研究人员能够考察：通过法律和科学辩论，区域人民、自然、领土以及公共和私有财产的概念是如何变化的；如何运用种族和区域认同和归属；以及不同的土地所有者和居住者如何通过他们自己的观念和土地所有权形式挑战和重塑国家项目。在此过程中，本研究将阐明国家形成、财产冲突和边境地区生产之间关系的形成。该研究将为国家、地区主义和强占的社会科学理论做出贡献。研究结果也将与对土地分配及其政治和文化后果感兴趣的决策者有关，特别是在过渡时期。

The research funded by this award addresses the question of what happens to rural people when the state-owned lands where they traditionally had use rights are taken from them for agribusiness projects. The appropriation of state lands for commercial agriculture and the associated dispossession of rural occupants constitute a widespread phenomenon that goes back centuries. But social scientific research on "land grabs" in the more interconnected world of today is just beginning. The researcher asks, How are state and public lands defined and delimited today? Who can use them and for what purposes? How are local people responding? And what does all this tell us about the nature of contemporary forms of governance and citizenship? To answer these questions, the researcher has identified a region where these processes are active and can be examined as they develop. By investigating a case of political and cultural disputes over land closely, this research will provide a unique window into emergent state transformation and changing definitions of private and public in the contemporary world. The research will be undertaken by Julio Arias Vanegas, a City University of New York anthropology doctoral student who is supervised by Dr. Marc Edelman. The active site that Arias has identified for this project is the Altillanura region of post-conflict Colombia. Arias will conduct twelve months of fieldwork in different locations in Colombia, collecting data through multiple methods, including document analysis, oral history, interviews, and participant observation. He will focus on two dissimilar but interrelated cases: (a) the case of state property that was home to an important regional agricultural research center and over which various groups now claim rights; and (b) an emerging regionalist agrarian movement that has confronted state legislation over the designation of specific land holdings as baldíos (vacant public lands). The study of these cases will allow the researcher to examine: how conceptions of regional people, nature, and territory, as well as public and private properties, have changed through legal and scientific debates; how racial and regional identification and belonging are deployed; and how different land-holders and occupants challenge and reshape state projects through their own notions and forms of land tenure. In doing so, this study will shed light on the making of the relationship between state formation, property conflicts, and the production of frontier regions. The research will contribute to social scientific theory on the state, regionalism, and dispossession. Findings also will be relevant for policymakers interested in land distribution and its political and cultural consequences, particularly in transitional contexts.