Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dispossession and Agrarian Politics

农村现代化是否不可避免地以大多数人的贫困为代价，导致少数人平均生活水平的提高？该奖项支持的研究调查了这个问题的答案是“否”的可能性，即存在其他情况。从历史上看，农村发展好坏参半。它增加了国民收入和现代化设施。但它也导致了剥夺，即土地和自然资源的控制权从小农、渔民和工匠手中转移到政府和商业利益集团手中。近三个世纪以来，这些力量将自给自足的农村居民转变为农村剩余劳动力，这些劳动力迁移到城市工作，产生了越来越多的城市贫困人口，或者移民到国外。但最近，社会科学家们发现，这个古老的故事发生了根本性的转变。随着民主在新地区的传播，一些被剥夺财产的人开始认为自己不仅仅是无能为力的受害者，他们唯一的选择是贫穷、起义和移民。相反，作为民主公民，他们似乎正在寻找与开发商接触和谈判的方法。他们获得了一些让步，比如增加补偿和加强环境保护，同时仍允许项目继续进行。记录和理解这些新的政治进程非常重要。这些知识将有助于各国决策者和政府指出新的发展道路，以更少的社会成本获得更多的收益。这项研究将由哥伦比亚大学博士生Geoffrey Aung （Soe Lin Aung）在Partha Chatterjee博士的建议下，在缅甸进行，缅甸是新兴民主化背景之一。这位研究人员将把重点放在缅甸东南部，在那里，为了开发一个经济特区，包括世界上最大的基础设施开发项目之一，大规模的土地收购浪潮取代了农村生产者。他将考虑三组问题。第一组涉及剥夺土地的实际情况，土地和资源控制如何以及为什么发生转变。第二组论述了对该地区农民和其他农村主体被剥夺财产的社会和政治反应。第三组关注物质基础设施的建设？道路、大坝、石油和天然气管道、炼油厂和工人宿舍，这些都是土地征用和流离失所的直接动力。本研究将透过混合人种志研究方法收集资料，包括入户调查、半结构化访谈、资源绘图、参与观察及档案分析。本研究结果将有助于更新农村转型如何展开的社会理论。调查结果还将有助于决策者和民间社会在不影响国家发展目标的情况下更好地解决农村居民的脆弱性问题。

Does rural modernization inevitably lead to rising average living standards for a minority at the cost of impoverishment of the majority? The research supported by this award investigates the possibility that the answer to this question is "No," that there are alternative scenarios. Historically, rural development has been a mixed blessing. It has increased national incomes and access to modern amenities. But it also has led to dispossession, which is the transfer of control over land and natural resources from small-scale farmers, fishers, and artisans, to governments and commercial interests. For almost three centuries, these forces have transformed self-sufficient rural residents into surplus rural labor who migrated to cities for work, producing increasing numbers of urban poor, or immigrated abroad. But recently social scientists have observed a fundamental shift in this old story. As democracy has spread to new sites, some of the dispossessed have come to see themselves as more than powerless victims whose only options are poverty, insurrection, and migration. Instead, as democratic citizens, they appear to be finding ways to engage and negotiate with the developers. They have obtained concessions, such as increased compensation and enhanced environmental protections, while still allowing projects to go forward. Documenting and understanding these new political processes is important. This knowledge will help policy makers and governments everywhere by pointing to new development pathways that will benefit more with fewer social costs.The research will be conducted in Myanmar, one of those newly democratized contexts, by Columbia University doctoral student, Geoffrey Aung (Soe Lin Aung), advised by Dr. Partha Chatterjee. The researcher will focus on southeastern Myanmar where waves of large-scale land acquisitions have displaced rural producers in order to develop a special economic zone that comprises one of the world's largest infrastructure development projects. He will consider three sets of questions. The first set concerns the actualities of dispossession, how and why shifts in land and resource control are taking place. The second set addresses social and political responses to dispossession by farmers and other rural subjects in the area. The third set attends to the construction of material infrastructures ? roads, a dam, oil and gas pipelines, a refinery, and worker dormitories, which provide the direct impetus for land seizures and displacement. The researcher will collect data through mixed-method ethnographic research, including household surveys, semi-structured interviews, resource mapping, participant observation, and archival analysis. Findings from this research will help to update social theories of how rural transformation unfolds. Findings will also help policy makers and civil society better address the vulnerabilities of rural residents without compromising national development goals.