Doctoral Dissertation Research: Examining Land Tenure Change and Well-Being

土地资源的治理对人类福祉至关重要，特别是考虑到对土地的需求不断增加，而且据记录土地冲突很容易升级为暴力。一个长期存在的理论主张是，如果没有强有力的国家行动或私人财产利益激励，个人不太可能协调可持续的资源管理。因此，国家直接控制土地或由国家官僚机构严格执行私有财产被认为是可持续管理的必要条件。然而，最近的研究表明，在国家直接控制或私人市场机制之外运作的社区资源治理往往是长期可行的，可以大大促进福祉。成功的基于社区的资源管理通常表现为资源使用者自己实施的规则制定、监测和制裁，并需要资源使用者之间的个人互动以及对当地环境的熟悉。该项目培训一名研究生掌握实证科学数据收集和分析方法，对正式和非正式的保有权安排进行比较分析，以探讨其对人类福祉的影响。该项目还旨在通过其传播计划提高公众对科学和科学方法的认识。在格鲁吉亚大学的布拉姆·塔克博士的监督下，安德鲁·博南诺将研究新官僚土地治理的福祉影响，在这种背景下，大多数小规模农民中传统的、以社区为基础的土地治理一直存在，同时政府和组织正在努力通过国家强制执行的私有财产使土地持有正规化。特别是，本研究探讨了土地治理如何影响农民从土地利用中受益的权利和能力，以及这对人类福祉的影响。研究将在两个地点进行：一个主要是传统的、以社区为基础的土地治理，另一个是最近采用的正式土地治理。农民将接受采访，了解他们的土地权利和资源使用，研究人员将陪同农民在土地使用活动，以阐明土地分配，使用和索赔的当地过程。然后，研究人员将进行焦点小组，以确定当地的福祉概念。最后，将进行住户调查，以调查各种权利与多种福祉指标之间的统计联系，包括地方福祉概念化以及标准财富和收入计量。数据将帮助其他科学家分析土地与人类福祉之间的联系，并进一步了解不同形式的土地治理如何影响福祉。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The governance of land resources is vital to human well-being, particularly given increasing demand for land and the ease with which land conflicts have been documented to escalate into violence. A longstanding theoretical claim has been that individuals are unlikely to coordinate sustainable resource management without strong state action or private property interests incentivizing them to do so. Direct state control of land or strict private property enforced by state bureaucracy has therefore been considered necessary for sustainable management. However, more recent studies have revealed that community-based resource governance operating outside direct state control or private market mechanisms is often viable in the long-term and can contribute significantly to well-being. Successful community-based resource management typically exhibits rule-making, monitoring, and sanctioning implemented by resource users themselves and requires personal interaction among resource users as well as familiarity with local environments. This project, which trains a graduate student in methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, comparatively analyzes formal and non-formal tenure arrangements to explore their impact on human well-being. The project also aims enhance public understanding of science and the scientific method through its dissemination plans. Andrew Bonanno, under the supervision of Dr. Bram Tucker of the University of Georgia, will examine the well-being implications of new bureaucratic land governance in a context where traditional, community-based land governance among most small-scale farmers have persisted alongside ongoing governmental and organizational efforts to formalize land holdings through state-enforced private property. In particular, this research examines how land governance impacts farmers' rights and abilities to benefit from land use, and the affects this has on human well-being. Research will be conducted at two sites: one with primarily traditional, community-based land governance, and one with recently introduced formalized land governance. Farmers will be interviewed about their land rights and resource use, and the researcher will accompany farmers during land-use activities to elucidate local processes of land allocation, use, and claim-making. The researcher will then conduct focus groups to identify local conceptualizations of well-being. Finally, household surveys will be implemented to investigate statistical associations between various rights and multiple well-being indicators, including local well-being conceptualizations as well as standard wealth and incomes measures. Data will aid other scientists in analyzing connections between land and human well-being and further understanding of how different forms of land governance can shape well-being. Such insights are critical for informing and evaluating land use and governance polices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.