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，而代价是大多数人的贫困？这项由该奖项支持的研究调查了这个问题的答案是否有可能是否定的，也就是存在其他方案。从历史上看，农村发展是喜忧参半。它增加了国民收入，增加了获得现代便利设施的机会。但它也导致了剥夺，即将对土地和自然资源的控制权从小规模农民、渔民和工匠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，他们迁移到城市工作，产生了越来越多的城市贫困人口，或移民到国外。但最近，社会科学家观察到了这一古老故事中的一个根本性转变。随着民主蔓延到新的地方，一些被剥夺权利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困、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。他们已经获得了让步，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。这一知识将有助于各国政策制定者和政府指出新的发展路径，这些路径将以更少的社会成本获得更多好处。这项研究将在缅甸进行，哥伦比亚大学博士生杰弗里·昂(Soe Lin Aung)将在帕塔·查特吉博士的建议下进行这项研究。缅甸是一个新的民主化背景。这位研究人员将把重点放在缅甸东南部，那里的大规模土地收购浪潮已经取代了农村生产者，以发展一个经济特区，该经济特区由世界上最大的基础设施开发项目之一组成。他将考虑三组问题。第一组涉及剥夺的现状，土地和资源控制的转变是如何以及为什么发生的。第二套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。第三套注重物质基础设施建设？道路、大坝、石油和天然气管道、炼油厂和工人宿舍，这些都是征地和流离失所的直接推动力。研究人员将通过混合方法的人种学研究收集数据，包括家庭调查、半结构访谈、资源地图、参与者观察和档案分析。这项研究的发现将有助于更新关于农村转型如何展开的社会理论。调查结果还将帮助政策制定者和公民社会在不损害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.