Browsing by Subject "Land rights"
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Item Land redistribution and Dalit assertion : mapping social change in Gaya, Bihar(2016-05) Prasad, Indulata; Hale, Charles R., 1957-; Visweswaran, Kamala; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Speed, Shannon; Vargas, João H Costa; Franklin, MariaThis dissertation uses social mapping in conjunction with ethnography to undertake a spatial analysis of the long-term effects of legal rights to redistributed land among Dalit communities in Bihar, to reframe what land means to these communities and how it has transformed their immediate social landscape and subjectivities. It does so by assessing questions undergirding the long-term impact of the Bodh Gaya land struggle—that for the first time in the history of social movements in South Asia— resulted in primarily Dalits, including women, securing joint titles along with their husbands. How has ownership of redistributed land shaped Dalit subjectivities in rural South Bihar? What do the altered material and social conditions of Dalits tell us about the claims made by land-based social movements and the State? How have acquiring productive assets for Dalits, a historically marginalized population, altered what is referred to as the ‘hidden apartheid’ in rural India? In answering these questions, attention to social space is crucial, as little attention has been paid to the ways in which rural spatial segregation within the village re-inscribes caste on a daily basis. First, the ownership of redistributed land has allowed for the emergence of a “politics of becoming” that actively opposes practices that perpetuate the social exclusion of Dalits. Through the actual control (kabza) over state owned land, previously under the control of the landed castes/elites, Dalits are effectively undermining the century old practices of kamiauti or servitude in the region and questioning old forms of caste mediated and gender relationships. Second, despite the mainstreaming of gender and land rights issues, the state bureaucracy continues to act as ‘machines for the social production of indifference’ toward the Dalit community. The ‘bureaucratic phase’ of the land struggle is characterized by prolonged inaction that has worked to not only intensify Dalit social suffering, but also has jeopardized the viability of peaceful forms of mobilization and resistance.Item Masters not friends : land, labor and politics of place in rural Pakistan(2013-05) Rizvi, Mubbashir Abbas; Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-This dissertation analyzes the cultural significance of land relations and caste/religious identity to understand political subjectivity in Punjab, Pakistan. The ethnography details the vicissitudes of a peasant land rights movement, Anjuman-e Mazarin Punjab (Punjab Tenants Association) that is struggling to retain land rights on vast agricultural farms controlled by the Pakistan army. The dissertation argues that land struggles should not only be understood in tropes of locality, but also as interconnected processes that attend to global and local changes in governance. To emphasize these connections, the dissertation gives a relational understanding of 'politics of place' that attends to a range of practices from the history of colonial infrastructure projects (the building of canals, roads and model villages) that transformed this agricultural frontier into the heart of British colonial administration. Similarly, the ethnographic chapters relate the history of 'place making' to the present day uncertainty for small tenant sharecroppers who defied the Pakistan Army's attempts to change land relations in the military farms. Within these parameters, this ethnographic study offers a "thick description" of Punjab Tenants Association to analyze the internal shifts in loyalties and alignments during the course of the protest movement by looking at how caste, religious and/or class relations gain or lose significance in the process. My research seeks to counter the predominant understanding of Muslim political subjectivity, which privileges religious beliefs over social practices and regional identity. Another aspect of my work elucidates the symbolic exchange between the infrastructural project of irrigation, railway construction and regional modernity in central Punjab. The network of canals, roads and railways transformed the semi-arid region of Indus Plains and created a unique relationship between the state and rural society in central Punjab. However, this close relationship between rural Punjab and state administration is not void of conflict but rather it indicates a complex sense of attachment and alienation, inclusion and exclusion from the state.Item Politicizing ethnicity : the Garifuna land rights struggle on Honduras' north coast(2006-12) Loperena, Christopher Anthony; Hale, Charles R., 1957-Garifuna land rights activists on the north coast of Honduras are enmeshed in a political struggle to attain territorial autonomy and collective rights over their ancestral lands. I explore the particularities of ethnic politics in the Garifuna Territory, an area comprised of 15 contiguous Garifuna communities straddling the Atlantic littoral of the Departments of Colon and Gracias a Dios. In elaborating the dialectical relationship between the emergence of indigenous rights and the parallel neoliberalization of the national economy, one can begin to understand the strategic mobilization of indigenous alterity in defense of communal lands. The purpose of the present work is to contribute a new perspective to debates surrounding indigenous ethnic politics, to broaden the concept of what constitutes indigeneity and to show how Garifuna ethnic politics dialogue with and contest hegemonic paradigms of indigeneity, citizenship and rights.Item “The worst problem no one has ever heard of" : heirs' property and its cultural significance to Gullah-Geechee residents of the South Carolina Lowcountry(2012-08) Butkus, Audrey Anne; Oden, Michael; Mueller, ElizabethThis report explores the gradual disappearance of Gullah-Geechee culture in the South Carolina Lowcountry through the loss of their communally held land, known as heirs’ property. The history of African American land ownership in the South will be uncovered in order to provide a context for the current issues heirs’ property owners and land rights advocates face. The major threats contributing heir’s property loss will be examined in order to gauge an understanding of the origins of distrust Gullah-Geechee landowners harbor against outside entities. Current private and public advocacy movements will be evaluated for their effectiveness in solving the heirs’ property issue in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The report will conclude with suggestions for filling the gap between the heirs’ property community and the private and public efforts designed to preserve the Gullah-Geechee culture and way of life.