Your search found 9 records
1 Suhardiman, Diana; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Kenney-Lazar, M. 2019. The territorial politics of land use planning in Laos. Land Use Policy, 83:346-356. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.02.017]
Land use planning ; Territories ; Political aspects ; Bureaucracy ; Local organizations ; Corporate culture ; Land governance ; Land policies ; Land allocation / Lao People's Democratic Republic
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049143)
This paper examines land use planning processes in Laos, particularly how they are shaped and reshaped by key actors’ interests and strategies across scales and how they are closely interlinked with state logics of territorialization. It critiques dominant perspectives that view land use planning as a tool for bridging policy and institutional divides to generate holistic land governance. Instead, it presents land use planning as a function of power and a contested arena of power struggle, driven primarily by the development targets of sectoral ministries and the interests of powerful local actors. We show how bureaucratic competition and sectoral fragmentation prevail directly within Laos’s National Land Master Plan formulation process. The paper shows how the logics of land governance in Laos are comprised of a disjuncture between national and local land use planning processes and, a disconnect between formal land use planning and actual land use across scales.
2 Suhardiman, Diana; Kenney-Lazar, M.; Meinzen-Dick, R. 2019. The contested terrain of land governance reform in Myanmar. Critical Asian Studies, 51(3):368-385. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2019.1630845]
Land governance ; Land policies ; Land reform ; Land use ; Land grabbing ; State intervention ; Civil society organizations ; Donors ; Political aspects ; Legal aspects ; Land law ; Farmers ; Land rights ; Social aspects / Myanmar
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049252)
(1.38 MB)
State control of land plays a critical role in producing land dispossession throughout the Global South. In Myanmar, the state’s approach towards territorial expansion has driven the country’s system of land governance, resulting in widespread and systemic land grabbing. This article investigates ongoing land governance reforms as key terrains for contesting such abuses of power. Employing a relational land governance approach, we view reform processes as shaped by changing power-laden social relations among government, civil society, and international donor actors. Legal and regulatory reforms in Myanmar potentially act as sites of meaningful social change but in practice tend to maintain significant limitations in altering governance dynamics. Civil society organizations and their alliances in Myanmar have played an important role in opening up policy processes to a broader group of political actors. Yet, policies and legal frameworks still are often captured by elite actors, becoming trapped in path dependent power relations.
3 Keovilignavong, Oulavanh; Suhardiman, Diana. 2020. Linking land tenure security with food security: unpacking farm households’ perceptions and strategies in the rural uplands of Laos. Land Use Policy, 90:104260. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104260]
Land tenure ; Perception of tenure security ; Food security ; Land use planning ; Land policies ; Household income ; Living standards ; Strategies ; Farmers' attitudes ; Non-farm employment ; Government policy ; Land governance ; Highlands ; Villages ; Rural areas ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Nambak / Houaykong / Namai
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049372)
(1.58 MB)
Land tenure, or access and rights to land, is essential to sustain people’s livelihoods. This paper looks at how farm households perceive land tenure (in)security in relation to food (in)security, and how these perceptions evolve throughout different policy periods in Laos. The paper highlights the centrality of farmers’ strategies in configuring the dynamic relationships between tenure (in)security and food (in)security, by demonstrating how farmers’ perceived and de facto land tenure insecurity shapes their decisions to diversify livelihood options to ensure food security. While the paper’s key findings reveal the close interlinkages between land tenure (in) security and food (in)security, we argue that the first does not automatically result in the latter. In contrast, we show how perceived and de-facto land tenure insecurity pushes farmers to explore alternative strategies and avenues to ensure food supply, through farm and non-farm employment. From a policy perspective, the paper highlights the need to put people’s livelihoods at the center of land governance, thus moving beyond the current positioning of land as merely a means for agricultural production or environmental conservation.
4 Suhardiman, Diana; Bright, J.; Palmano, C. 2021. The politics of legal pluralism in the shaping of spatial power in Myanmar’s land governance. Journal of Peasant Studies, 48(2):411-435. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2019.1656200]
Land governance ; Legal pluralism ; Political power ; Land use ; Land rights ; Land policies ; Central government ; Political institutions ; Legal frameworks ; Farmers ; Land tenure ; Customary tenure ; Land titling ; Strategies ; Villages ; Local communities ; Case studies / Myanmar / Karen State / Mukaplow / Maepoe Noh
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049411)
(2.05 MB)
Following the National League for Democracy’s landslide victory in the 2015 national election, Myanmar embarked on a series of legal and political transitions. This paper highlights parallel processes alongside such transitions. Linking land governance with the ongoing peace processes, and taking Karen state as a case study, it brings to light how both processes are in fact closely interlinked. Building on legal pluralism research, we argue that in the context of ethnic states, farmers’ strategies to strengthen their land rights resemble the very notion of state transformation.
5 German, L. A.; Bonanno, A. M.; Foster, L. C.; Cotula, L. 2020. “Inclusive business” in agriculture: evidence from the evolution of agricultural value chains. World Development, 134:105018. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105018]
Agribusiness ; Value chains ; Smallholders ; Agrarian reform ; Food security ; Business models ; Land governance ; Living standards ; Social aspects ; Inclusion ; Industrialization ; Policies ; Political aspects ; Perishable products ; Crops ; Cassava ; Coffee ; Palm oils ; Markets ; Households ; Women / Africa South of Sahara / East Africa / Southern Africa / Europe / South East Asia / Latin America / South America / Brazil / Peru
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049773)
(0.57 MB)
Sustained interest by the business community in commercial agriculture in the global South has been welcomed for its potential to bring capital into long neglected rural areas, but has also raised concerns over implications for customary land rights and the terms of integration of local land and labor into global supply chains. In global development policy and discourse, the concept of “inclusive business” has become central in efforts to resolve these tensions, with the idea that integrating smallholders and other disadvantaged actors into partnerships with agribusiness firms can generate benefits for national economies, private investors, and local livelihoods. Scholarly treatment of the topic has tended to be polarized into win/lose narratives, or points to the contingency and social differentiation of localized experiences. This review paper takes a different approach, exploring published evidence on the structural factors shaping agricultural value chains and their implications for social inclusion. We develop a typology of seven agricultural value chains, and use this to select a sample of crops in specific world regions for an analysis of how structural factors in value chain relations - from crop features, to market dynamics and policy drivers – affect social inclusion (and exclusion). Such an approach allows us to ask whether inclusive agribusiness is a realistic goal given the broader structuring of agribusiness and the global economic system. Our study finds that while the characteristics of specific crops and supply chains exert a strong influence on opportunities and constraints to inclusion, the overall trend is towards more exclusive agribusiness as governments scale back support to smallholders, more stringent standards raise barriers to entry, and firms streamline operations to enhance competitiveness. This raises questions about the feasibility of this goal under the current political economic system. Findings point to the need to re-consider the policy choices behind these trends, and how we deploy the fiscal, legislative, and gate-keeper functions of the state to shape agrarian trajectories.
6 Kramp, J.; Suhardiman, Diana; Keovilignavong, Oulavanh. 2022. (Un)making the upland: resettlement, rubber and land use planning in Namai village, Laos. Journal of Peasant Studies, 49(1):78-100. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2020.1762179]
Land use planning ; Rubber industry ; Resettlement ; Highlands ; Customary land rights ; Concession (land) ; Land governance ; State intervention ; Institutions ; Communities ; Ethnic groups ; Villages ; Social structure ; Farmers ; Strategies ; Cash crops ; Households / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Namai
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049808)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2020.1762179?needAccess=true
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049808.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049808.pdf
(2.47 MB) (2.47 MB)
This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative. We show how internal resettlement, ethnic division and the influx of commercial agriculture in the Lao uplands intersect in a novel land use planning process and predetermine the plan’s actual significance.
7 Suhardiman, Diana; Scurrah, N. 2021. Institutional bricolage and the (re)shaping of communal land tenure arrangements: two contrasting cases in upland and lowland northeastern Laos. World Development, 147:105630. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105630]
Common lands ; Land tenure systems ; Customary tenure ; Institutional development ; Highlands ; Lowland ; Land use planning ; Land access ; Land governance ; Collective action ; State intervention ; Political aspects ; Farmers ; Households ; Livelihoods ; Strategies ; Rural areas ; Villages ; Local communities ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Houaphan / Viengxay / Khouan / Navit / Pa Khom
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050547)
(1.70 MB)
This article examines the factors shaping communal land tenure and livelihood practices in two villages in Houaphan province, Northeastern Laos. It employs the concept of institutional bricolage to show how local actors combine communal tenure, state intervention, donor programs and local power relations to (re)shape formal rules and day-to-day land tenure and livelihood practices. In particular, it highlights how state territorial strategies in lowland and upland rural spaces have differently shaped state interventions in communal land use and access, producing hybrid forms of communal land management rules and practices. The two cases highlight different processes by which communal tenure is eroded or adapted in the process of state incorporation, raising questions about competing authorities over land and the interests and objectives of different actors in land administration. The village cases illustrate how local communities’ (in)ability to shape, adapt, and reproduce institutional rules and arrangements pertaining to access and use of communal land is closely interlinked with: 1) how farm households perceive communal land tenure in relation to their livelihood options and farming strategies; 2) how power relations among local communities and between local communities and state actors shape decision-making processes and distributional outcomes; and 3) the role of the state in sustaining and advancing its control over land and how this changes over time.
8 Moreda, T. 2022. Beyond land rights registration: understanding the mundane elements of land conflict in Ethiopia. Journal of Peasant Studies, 30p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120813]
Land rights ; Land registration ; Land conflicts ; Commercialization ; Land administration ; Land governance ; Land tenure ; Land dispute ; Common lands ; Land use ; Land resources ; Households ; Political ecology ; Case studies / Ethiopia / Amhara / Gondar / Tach Gayint / Fogera
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051418)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2022.2120813
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051418.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051418.pdf
(2.50 MB) (2.50 MB)
While land registration may increase the sense of security amongst landholders and provide a mechanism for resolving boundary disputes, its interaction with social, political-economic and ecological dynamics can actually generate conflicts by creating new opportunities by which some actors can assert claims or expand their landholdings, often at the expense of others. Conflicts over land cannot be understood without understanding the local dynamics with which they are intertwined. Drawing from case studies in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, this paper shows that, despite land registration and certification, there are widespread conflicts within and between households and state authorities regarding the usufruct of individual and communal lands. The paper argues that conflicts over land are complex and political and are linked to and embedded in the processes of commercialization, as well as in local social processes and power relations. These, in turn, influence and are shaped by the political economy of local governance and land administration processes, particularly in relation to the implementation of land registration. The paper highlights that land conflicts are attributed to a range of issues, including not only the challenges of governance in land registration but also population growth, commercialization, urbanization, inheritance and gender inequality, all of which intersect with corrupt land administration systems .
9 Cho, M. A.; Mutanga, O.; Mabhaudhi, Tafadzwanashe. 2023. Understanding local actors’ perspective of threats to the sustainable management of communal rangeland and the role of Participatory GIS (PGIS): the case of Vulindlela, South Africa. South African Geographical Journal, 105(4):516-533. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03736245.2023.2190153]
Sustainable land management ; Rangelands ; Common lands ; Local knowledge ; Participatory rural appraisal ; Geographical information systems ; Land governance ; Mapping ; Techniques ; Grazing lands ; Land productivity ; Ecological factors ; Socioeconomic aspects ; Pastoralists ; Communities ; Livelihoods ; Inclusion ; Assessment / South Africa / Vulindlela
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051819)
(2.79 MB)
Rangelands in arid and semi-arid regions serve as grazing land for domesticated animals and therefore offer livelihood opportunities for most pastoral communities. Thus, the exposure of most rangelands in arid and semi-arid regions to threats that are associated with natural, social, economic, and political processes affects their capacity to provide socioeconomic and environmental support to the immediate and global communities. In spite of the effects of rangeland transformations on both the natural and human environment, the assessment of threats affecting rangeland productivity has often been approached from a conventional scientific perspective. Most existing literature is focused on the assessment of threats to the biophysical environment. As such the social dimension of rangeland threats is not well understood. This research employed participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and PGIS techniques to assess rangeland threats and management actions from a local perspective. The result revealed that local actors prioritize threats to their social and economic needs over threats to the biophysical environment and their preference is informed by the frequency and magnitude of the threats. The outcome of the research demonstrates the need to promote rangeland governance through interdisciplinary and inclusive participation in research and development.
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