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

这项由该奖项资助的研究解决的问题是，当农村人传统上拥有使用权的国有土地被征用于农业综合企业项目时，他们会发生什么。将国有土地用于商业性农业，以及与之相关的对农村居民的剥夺，构成了一种可以追溯到几个世纪前的普遍现象。但是，在当今相互联系更加紧密的世界里，关于“土地掠夺”的社会科学研究才刚刚开始。研究人员问，今天国家和公共土地是如何定义和划定的？谁可以使用它们？目的是什么？当地人是怎么反应的？所有这一切告诉我们关于当代形式的治理和公民身份的性质是什么？为了回答这些问题，研究人员已经确定了一个区域，在那里这些过程是活跃的，并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仔细调查，这项研究将为我们提供一个独特的窗口，来了解当代世界正在发生的国家转型以及私人和公共的定义的变化。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·瓦内加斯进行，他的导师是马克·埃德尔曼博士。Arias为这一项目确定的活动地点是冲突后哥伦比亚的Altillanura地区。Arias将在哥伦比亚的不同地点进行为期12个月的实地考察，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。他将专注于两个不同但相互关联的案件：(A)国有财产案件，该案件是一个重要的地区性农业研究中心的所在地，现在不同的团体声称对其拥有权利；以及(B)一场新兴的地区主义农业运动，它因将特定的土地所有权指定为秃顶(空置公共土地)而与州立法发生冲突。对这些案例的研究将使研究人员能够审查：地区人民、自然和领土以及公共和私人财产的概念如何通过法律和科学辩论发生变化；种族和地区认同和归属感是如何部署的；不同的土地所有者和居住者如何通过他们自己的土地保有权概念和形式挑战和重塑国家项目。通过这样做，这项研究将有助于揭示国家形成、财产冲突和边疆地区生产之间的关系。这项研究将有助于关于国家、地区主义和征用的社会科学理论。调查结果也将与关注土地分配及其政治和文化后果的政策制定者相关，特别是在过渡背景下。

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.