Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ethnicity, Difference and the Feasibility of Spatial Exclusion Policies in Resolving Land Conflicts

这项研究试图了解在何种条件下小农的身份——作为“土著”或不是——形成了土地冲突。在许多边境地区，暴力土地冲突经常使土著人民与新到边境的非土著农民发生冲突。这些移徙者往往没有土地，并从其他地方流离失所。他们还经常被指责为土地冲突的罪魁祸首，并被指控入侵土著土地和破坏森林。解决土地冲突的大多数努力建议驱逐移徙者，特别是当他们在土著土地上定居时。本研究聚焦于移民驱逐和其他空间排斥政策，探讨其在概念和实践中“指责受害者”的程度。研究认为，这种战略掩盖了解决导致非土著人民流离失所和向土著领土迁移的更广泛的政治经济进程的能力。研究人员将测试这样一种观点，即如果不解决这些更广泛的问题，这些政策可能弊大于利。这类研究是至关重要的，因为驱逐移民政策虽然仍然相对较新，但许多国家正在考虑将其作为在土地和资源丰富的边境裁定土地争端的一种手段。因此，本研究旨在对有关此类政策可行性的高风险辩论作出直接贡献。在地方一级，研究人员与地方大学密切合作，为机构建设和学术培训作出贡献。此外，在研究过程的所有阶段与土著和非土著社区合作，确保将他们的数据和研究需要纳入研究设计。该项目为博士生完成论文研究提供支持。这项研究的新颖之处在于突出了非土著移民的观点。这项工作以政治生态学和文化政治学的文献为基础，并以新的方式借鉴了批判种族理论。移民驱逐被定义为一种差异制造的实例，这是新自由主义治理模式和以市场为基础的环境保护方法占主导地位的结果。它忽视了非土著群体经常共同经历的边缘化和剥夺以及多重身份。研究人员建议，挑战这些简单的分类需要关注当地人如何表达和协商他们与土地有关的身份。为此，联合调查小组将在先前对政策制定者的访谈和正在进行的人口普查数据分析的基础上，通过口述历史、小组访谈和对尼加拉瓜大西洋沿岸非土著和土著马扬纳社区的家庭调查，分析领土冲突及其可能的解决方案。多种方法旨在回答以下核心问题：1)什么条件和动机促使非土著移民到土著领土？2)土地权是如何被理解的，又是如何通过特定的民族归属形式来建构的？3)当地如何看待移民驱逐和其他排他性政策？

This research seeks to understand the conditions under which the identity of small farmers - as "indigenous" or not - shapes land conflicts. In many frontier regions, violent land conflicts often pit indigenous people against non-indigenous farmers who are newly arrived at the frontier. These migrants are often landless and have been displaced from other settings. They are also commonly blamed for land conflicts, and accused of invading indigenous lands and destroying forests. Most efforts to solve land conflicts recommend the expulsion of migrants, especially when they are settling on indigenous land. This research focuses on migrant expulsion and other policies of spatial exclusion to explore the degree to which, in their conceptualization and practice, they "blame the victim". The research posits that such strategies obscure the ability to address the broader political-economic processes that contributed to displacement and migration of non-indigenous people to indigenous territories in the first place. The researchers will test the idea that such policies are likely to do more harm than good by not addressing these broader issues. Such research is vital, because migrant expulsion policies, while still relatively new, are being considered by multiple countries as a means of adjudicating land disputes in land- and resource-rich frontiers. This research thus aims to make a direct contribution to the high-stakes debate on the feasibility of such policies. At the local level, the researchers cooperate closely with local universities to contribute to institution-building and academic training. Moreover, collaboration with indigenous and non-indigenous communities at all stages of the research process ensures that their data and research needs are incorporated into the research design. The project provides support to a PhD student to complete dissertation research.The research is novel in highlighting the viewpoints of non-indigenous migrants. The work is grounded in literatures in political ecology and cultural politics and draws on critical race theory in new ways. Migrant expulsion is conceptualized as an instance of difference-making, resulting from the dominance of neoliberal modes of governance and market-based approaches to environmental conservation. It ignores the often shared experiences of marginalization and dispossession and the multiple identities within the non-indigenous group. The researchers suggest that challenging these facile categorizations requires attention to how local people articulate and negotiate their identities in relation to land. Toward this end, building on prior interviews with policy makers and ongoing analysis of census data, the co-PI will analyze territorial conflicts and their possible solutions through oral histories, group interviews, and a household survey with non-indigenous and indigenous Mayangna communities on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast. The multiple methods are designed to answer the core questions: 1) What conditions and motivations propel non-indigenous migration to indigenous territories? 2) How are rights to land understood, and how are they constructed through specific forms of ethnic ascription? 3) How are migrant expulsion and other exclusionary policies perceived on the ground?