Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dispossession and Agrarian Politics

农村现代化是否必然导致少数人平均生活水平的提高，而以多数人的贫困为代价？该奖项支持的研究调查了这个问题的答案是“不”的可能性，即存在替代方案。从历史上看，农村发展是喜忧参半。它增加了国民收入和获得现代设施的机会。但它也导致了土地被剥夺，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，这些力量已经将自给自足的农村居民转变为农村剩余劳动力，他们迁移到城市工作，产生越来越多的城市穷人，或者移民国外。 但最近社会科学家观察到这个古老故事的根本转变。随着民主制度向新的地方传播，一些一无所有的人开始把自己看作不仅仅是无能为力的受害者，他们唯一的选择是贫穷、叛乱和移民。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。他们获得了让步，比如增加赔偿和加强环境保护，同时仍然允许项目继续进行。记录和理解这些新的政治进程是重要的。这些知识将帮助世界各地的政策制定者和政府指出新的发展道路，以更少的社会成本获得更大的收益。这项研究将在缅甸进行，缅甸是新近民主化的环境之一，由哥伦比亚大学博士生Geoffrey Aung（Soe Lin Aung）在Partha Chatterjee博士的指导下进行。研究人员将重点关注缅甸东南部，那里的大规模土地收购浪潮已经取代了农村生产者，以便开发一个经济特区，其中包括世界上最大的基础设施开发项目之一。他将考虑三组问题。第一组涉及剥夺的现状，土地和资源控制的变化是如何发生的，以及为什么发生。第二组涉及该地区农民和其他农村主体对剥夺土地的社会和政治反应。第三套是物质基础设施建设。道路、水坝、石油和天然气管道、炼油厂和工人宿舍，这些都是没收土地和流离失所的直接原因。研究人员将通过混合方法的民族志研究收集数据，包括住户调查，半结构化访谈，资源映射，参与者观察和档案分析。本研究的发现将有助于更新农村转型如何展开的社会理论。调查结果还将帮助决策者和民间社会更好地解决农村居民的脆弱性，同时不影响国家发展目标。

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.