Landgrabbing

This paper looks at how waves of land grabbing in West Kalimantan, Indonesia are transforming the
political ecology of the Kapuas River. Key land grabbing activities include the ubiquitous palm oil
industry, mining (particularly bauxite and gold), logging and pulp and paper plantations, and a variety
of green grabs (Heart of Borneo, national parks and REDD projects). Currently, concession permits
cover 130% of the province, leading to land conflicts and to a politicization of the spatial planning
process. In this paper, we want to look beyond these territorial conflicts by linking them, via the river,
to “city-rural-river-transformation loops” characterized by specific networks of economic and political
actors operating at different scales. We start this empirical inquiry by action research with “Citizen
Research  Groups”  (CRG)  in  communities  impacted  by  key  qualitative  transformations.  The  CRGs
started  to  challenge  their  “local  land  grabs”  for  example  by  using  community  drones  for  counter-
mapping. Later, they connected their experience to that of the other CRGs and to how this affected the
river as a whole. We argue that while all the land grabs are ultimately driven by the “meta-network”
(Castells)  of  the  financial  markets  at  the  global  scale,  appropriation  and  accumulation  strategies
manifest themselves differently according to the materiality of the specific resource. While palm oil
and  bauxite  mining  are  large  scale  operations  by  transnational  corporations  and  enjoy  intimate
relations with national and provincial governments, gold mining is conducted by local start-ups and
worker-entrepreneurs and is criminalised by the state. And each activity changes the ecology of the
river in a particular way. The palm oil industry not only destroys the forest-river-ecosystem but also
pollutes the river with run-off pesticides and fertilizers and with palm oil mill effluent (POME). Gold
mining not only lays waste to riverine landscapes but also pollutes the river with mercury. In Tayan,
large bauxite operations have laid a lake dry that was a key resource for fisherwomen. Pollution has
created a crisis for fishermen and women as natural fish stocks have plummeted. In the poorer areas of
the city, the river is so dirty that it can no longer serve as a site of social reproduction (drinking water,
washing,  laundry),  with  serious  related  health  issues.  Money  and  power  flow  up  the  river,  while
resources and pollution flow back to the city. Land grabs transform the river from a space of life and
livelihoods to one of pollution and illness. At the same time, the river has the potential to connect and
scale up otherwise localized and segregated struggles over land grabs.

Salvo  contadas  excepciones,  los  estudios  turísticos han  eludido  los  análisis  y  debates  existentes  en  los estudios rurales: la suposición de que el crecimiento económico  en  base  al  turismo  favorece  a  todos  los sectores  sociales  implicados  se  ha  convertido  en un  axioma  para  esa  especialidad,  sin  entender  las complejidades  que  se  dan  en  el  mundo  rural  entre sectores  económicos,  modelos  de  producción  y agro-ecosistemas.  Por  su  parte  los  estudios  rurales simplemente  han  eludido,  durante  mucho  tiempo, el  papel  del  turismo  en  las  transformaciones  del mundo  rural,  aun  cuando  su  rápido  crecimiento  lo ha convertido en un fenómeno patente hasta en los lugares más recónditos del planeta.

Objetivo  del  presente  libro  es  establecer  lazos entre  estos  dos  ámbitos  de  estudio.  Por  un  lado, analizando  el  rol  del  turismo  en  el  mundo  rural desde  la  concepción  que  los  estudios  rurales  hacen actualmente  de  la  economía  campesina:  como  un modelo  específico  de  manejo  de  los  agrosistemas socialmente  adecuado,  económicamente  eficiente y  ecológicamente  sostenible.  Por  otro,  examinando casos  concretos  en  los  que  el  turismo  actúa  como un  vector  más  de  los  cambios  globales  que  vive  el mundo rural.

El fenómeno del despojo de tierra y agua, entre otros recursos naturales, ha ganado creciente atención en los últimos años. A pesar de esto, pocos trabajos han abordado el problema del acaparamiento y la concentración de los recursos desde una perspectiva etnográfica que permita ilustrar las distintas formas en las que se da el despojo, así como sus mecanismos y efectos concretos en contextos históricos, geográficos y políticos particulares. Este artículo aporta críticamente a esta literatura. Basado en el caso específico de la región de Montes de María, ubicada en el Caribe colombiano, el artículo muestra cómo las violencias del despojo se producen y mantienen desde dinámicas cotidianas. A partir del análisis de i) las geografías imaginadas de la región, ii) la implementación de proyectos de desarrollo, iii) los procesos de privatización del agua, y iv) la configuración de espacios del miedo, esta investigación ilustra cómo se producen los paisajes del despojo cotidiano en la región. De este modo, busca contribuir a los estudios sobre conflictos socioambientales e irrumpir en la narrativa del posconflicto en la región.

The land grabbing issue has produced a plethora of debates ranging from ethical conduct of land grabbing agents, specifically concerning displacement, to evidence for and against positive externalities such as technological spill-overs and construction of infrastructure. An underexplored topic is the valuation of agricultural land and the compensatory payments made to land users, distinct from land owners, for the loss of their source of food security. This paper establishes a theoretical framework for the valuation of agricultural land from the perspective of land users, based on a household production function. For the analysis data were collected in a survey of 203 households in the land grab affected area in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone during 2013. It shows that, for the case of a specific land grab in Sierra Leone, the compensatory payments received by land users are far below the value of the land lost and as such the lease income is unable to allow these households to maintain their previously, already tenuous, levels of food security. A clear distinction is made between land owners and even more vulnerable nonlandowning land users who depend on the agricultural land for their food security and livelihoods. The household level analysis showed that in addition to the level of compensation received by the average household being insufficient to maintain a priori
welfare levels the distribution of compensation significantly favoured the wealthier households. Since the value of the land and the rent distribution were set in local positive law the project could correctly call itself fully compliant but the land grab still resulted in significant welfare losses. The methodology implemented by this ex-post study can identically be applied to an ex-ante scenario allowing land grabbing agents to define a minimum compensatory payment to land users not based on asymmetrical bargaining power but on actual land value to this vulnerable section of the local population.

El fenómeno del despojo de tierra y agua, entre otros recursos naturales, ha ganado creciente atención en los últimos años. A pesar de esto, pocos trabajos han abordado el problema del acaparamiento y la concentración de los recursos desde una perspectiva etnográfica que permita ilustrar las distintas formas en las que se da el despojo, así como sus mecanismos y efectos concretos en contextos históricos, geográficos y políticos particulares. Este artículo aporta críticamente a esta literatura. Basado en el caso específico de la región de Montes de María, ubicada en el Caribe colombiano, el artículo muestra cómo las violencias del despojo se producen y mantienen desde dinámicas cotidianas. A partir del análisis de i) las geografías imaginadas de la región, ii) la implementación de proyectos de desarrollo, iii) los procesos de privatización del agua, y iv) la configuración de espacios del miedo, esta investigación ilustra cómo se producen los paisajes del despojo cotidiano en la región. De este modo, busca contribuir a los estudios sobre conflictos socioambientales e irrumpir en la narrativa del posconflicto en la región.

The phenomena of landgrabbing and monopolizing of water sources have gained increasing attention in recent years. Nevertheless, very few studies have dealt with the problem of the grabbing and concentration of resources from an ethnographic perspective that would make it possible to illustrate the different ways in which dispossession takes place, as well as its concrete mechanisms and effects in particular historical, geographic and political contexts. This article makes a critical contribution to the relevant literature. Based on the specific case of the area of Montes de María, located in the Caribbean region of Colombia, it shows how the violent forms of dispossession are produced and maintained by everyday dynamics. Through the analysis of i) the imagined geographies of the region, ii) the implementation of development projects, iii) the processes of privatization of water resources, and iv) the configuration of spaces of fear, this study illustrates how the landscapes of everyday dispossession in the region are produced. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the research on socio-environmental conflicts and to break into the narrative of post-conflict in the region.