Panels | Congreso Reformas Agrarias y gestión de los recursos naturales en África y América Latina.

Panels

Panel 1 (SC) Economic development, land possession and poverty.

Coordinators:

Nuria Duperier (Grupo de Estudios Africanos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

Gonzalo Ramírez de Haro (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos)

The panel concerning economic development, land possession and poverty will be directed at:

- Analysing to what extent agricultural reform processes have contributed to the reduction of rural poverty (and exclusion).

- Identifying the factors that explain the different results obtained by agricultural reform initiatives. Special attention can paid to the type of complementary measures (of training, credit access…) which accompany them.

- Analysing the “land reform” initiatives adopted recently (which in some countries attempt against the advances on the subject of land redistribution that had been made in the past) that cause in practice an increase in the concentration of land property.

- Studying how the processes of deruralization taking place in African and Latin-American societies are affecting the ownership and distribution of land.

Panel 2 (SC) Land reform and social movements

Coordinator:

Víctor Bretón (Universidad de Lleida)

The relationship between agricultural reform and the articulation of collective action organization platforms for rural populations is a remarkable subject that does not always receive the attention it deserves by researchers and analysts. The analysis will have to be examined in the panel with two perspectives:

- One in a historical view, analysing the importance that the demands for the agricultural sharing had in accord with the rural movements of the decades corresponding to classic “deveopmentalism” (the 60s and 70s).

- The other with a current or contemporary character, in the sense of deepening the ascertainable relationships between, on the one hand, the articulation of new organisation models (much of these revolve around ethnic identify and not explicitly concerning a class conscious type of discourse) and, on the other hand, the persistence of problems derived from the unresolved problems of land concentration and other resources in the age of neoliberalism.

Panel 3 (SC) Reviewing the tragedy of the commons: the viability of community management

Coordinators:

Albert Roca (Universidad de Lleida)

Marina Padrão Temudo (Instituto de Investigaçao Científica Tropical. Lisboa)

In 1968, Garret Hardin wrote the famous article “The tragedy of the commons” which, regardless of his later efforts to avoid simplistic interpretations of that work, became a sacred text in neo-Malthusian conservation efforts and in neo-liberal interventions on land tenure. The main assumption underneath them maintains that common property resource management could be sustainable at low population densities but open access to growing populations and unrestricted demand for a finite resource by competitive individuals will lead to over-exploitation and land degradation. Therefore, only privatisation could assure a sustainable use and investments for increasing productivity.

The sequence of events in many groups and societies has denied or nuanced Hardin’s approach. Communal resources management has often proved to be much more resilient than expected — not in the atavistic sense, but in the utilitarian sense that they are solving daily needs of local people — and extremely diverse. This resilience and diversity may lighten the general perspectives about land reform and about local or native knowledge in resources management, understanding that this knowledge and this land tenure are connected with the local social structures and power relations. The panel proposes a comparative and diachronic approach to the question.

Panel 4 (SC) Land reform and alimentary sovereignty: the new booms and their impact on the agriculture of the South.

Coordinator:

Andreu Viola (Universidad de Barcelona)

Last year several studies documented a re-emergence of the world hunger phenomena. The land’s problem has been historically and structurally related with hunger, for which land reform and alimentary sovereignty are two inseparable goals.

During the last decade some new variables that are generating a considerable controversy have appeared. Some examples that we have proposed to analyse in this panel are as follows:

- The sale or rent of huge areas of agricultural land to foreign investors by several African and Latin American governments.

- The transgenic soybean crop boom. Its commercialisation means a frantic increase in deforestation, ground degradation, and pollution from agrochemical products; it is necessary to highlight the social conflicts provoked by an increasing concentration of land agricultural and the massive invasion of native territories and country properties by agribusiness interests.

- The quick increase in the worldwide production of agrofuels that presents new threats for alimentary sovereignty and rural population.

These situations delimit an interesting area of reflection and discussion, centring us on an impact analysis of these commercial booms that concern the possession and management of land, agricultural relationships and the feeding of the local population, as well as increasing interests and foreign capital in the agriculture of the South, separated by the territory and foreign to their needs.

Panel 5 (SC) International law and indigenous territories

Coordinator:

Mònica Martínez (Universidad de Lleida)

In 1989, the ILO approved the Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, and more recently, in 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The approval of these two legal mechanisms in an international context has marked before and after an agenda of indigenous collectives and populations as well as autonomous communities, a centred agenda recognizing access to their lands, territories and natural resources. In the American and African continents, in spite of their differences in the indigenous and autonomous conceptions, a legal process is taking place with very diverse results, for which regulatory precedents are being created concerning indigenous rights and reclamation of territories to give back to diverse groups.

In this panel we are interested in these processes and their effects on the local management of natural resources, as well as on the alternatives of legal procedures.

Panel 6 (SC) Market-led vs non-market oriented agrarian (land) reforms

Coordinadores:

Saturnino Borras Jr. (Saint Mary’s University. Halifax )

Carlos Oya (School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London)

The diversity of policies and actions that are encompassed under the “land reform” banner is very extensive and, in different cultural and historical contexts, different responses and adaptations arise. A key factor is the role that the market plays (in this case especially the land market in the distribution of assets, in the form of ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ redistribution arrangements) in each one of the policies mentioned. Openly productivist approaches can be distinguished in general in which land reform is basically seen as an improvement mechanism in the efficiency of land use, and in other cases, the fundamental goal of reform is rather social and political, focused on equity, for which the market as a resource assignment is problematic if not contradictory. Transnational agribusiness can also adopt alternative mechanisms for land access, which do not interfere with established land property rights, as is the case with contract farming, for example. More recently, a process of large-scale ‘land grabs’ seems to be under way and the panel would welcome any work with some empirical evidence on the matter, as this is a process that brings new market-based and state-mediated forms of transnational land acquisition. The panel will approach these and other related debates, giving special attention to the evidence accumulated concerning land reform processes (fundamentally concerning land redistribution) that have followed a market approach (willing seller-willing buyer’).

Panel 7 Rural and farm women of the south

Coordinators:

Juana Moreno (Instituto de Estudios Avanzados del CSIC. Córdoba)

Asli Ocal (Instituto de Estudios Avanzados del CSIC. Córdoba)

Ever since a few decades ago, the process of international commerce liberalization, the privatisation of agricultural production and the promotion of monocultures for export have been dismantling family agricultural productions, increasing the dependence and vulnerability of farmers that are impoverished and very often destined to abandon agriculture.

These macrostructural processes are not gender-neutral. The strength of patriarchal structures results in, according to the FAO, women making up 70% of people who are considered in absolute poverty in the rural world.

The objective of this panel is to know the new problems of rural women, interrelating the different spheres that affect their realities from a gender perspective. In the wake of this general objective, the following specific questions are presented:

- How do transformations in the modes of agricultural production impact rural women? What strategies are there on individual and collective levels that display rural women in this context?

- To what extent is it a context that offers new opportunities or is it a dynamic that reinforces, on the contrary, inequality between the sexes.

- How is the collective action organized concerning the situation of rural women?

Panel 8 Nuevo activismo rural y redes transnacionales: diálogos América Latina / África.

Coordinador:

Breno Bringel (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

En los últimos años se observa una redefinición de la política y lo político en el ámbito rural y la irrupción de unos movimientos sociales renovados en el campo (campesinos, indígenas, de mujeres, etc.). Entre muchas otras características, se puede destacar la aparición de nuevas demanadas más aglutinadoras (como la soberanía alimentaria), un repertorio de acción colectiva ampliado (desde nuevas estrategias de protestas locales a incidencias en cumbres de organizaciones internacionales como la FAO o la OMC) y una transnacionalización que ha marcado la constitución de redes, formales e informales, donde articular su trabajo más allá de la territorialidad del Estado-nación (como varias redes de dimensión regional y otras, como La Vía Campesina, de carácter internacional).

El presente Panel pretende explorar las caraterísticas y repercusiones de esta transnacionalización del activismo rural tanto en América Latina como en África. Se dará especial importancia a las conexiones, experiencias, eventos y redes transnacionales tejidas entre los movimientos del campo en las dos regiones (y sus implicaciones en términos de una nueva cartografía de resistencia regional y/o subregional), pero también entre las dos regiones (desde una perspectiva birregional y transnacional).

Entre los temas relevantes que serán tratados están:

• La identificación de los espacios y ámbitos de cooperación y conflicto, solidaridad y convergencia;

• Los cambios producidos en los movimientos (sean simbólicos, discursivos, identitarios, políticos, etc.) en su incorporación a redes más amplias;

• Los diferentes repertorios de acción colectiva (desde acciones directas más radicales a estrategias más cooperativas e institucionalizadas);

• Las experiencias y tensiones en torno a diferentes conceptualizaciones que tienen acerca de la tierra, el territorio y la reforma agraria, así como la influencia de estas convergencias y solidaridades militantes en la reconceptualización de la reforma agraria;

• La centralidad del sujeto (campesino, indígena, etc.) y la cuestión de la autonomía frente a otros actores sociales como las ONG;

• Presentación de estudios de caso sobre resistencias rurales relacionados a la minería, las represas hidroeléctricas, la actuación de las empresas transnacionales y, de forma más general, a la nueva geopolítica global de los recursos naturales;

• Análisis sobre los nuevos desafíos teóricos-metodológicos-epistemológicos que se enfrentan las diferentes áreas del conocimiento, disciplinas y escuelas interpretativas en la interpretación de este nuevo activismo rural (principalmente las teorías de la acción colectiva y de los movimientos sociales, sociología y geografía rural; estudios culturales, de desarrollo, género, campesinado, etc.)

Panel 9 State-led land policies and social reality: contradictions and interactions

Coordinadores:

An Ansoms (Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp.)

Dominik Kohlhagen (Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp.)

In most African and Latin American countries, the official land tenure and registration system has a very limited impact only. Local customs and practices frequently contrast sharply with the ‘should-be’ declared by legal statutes or state policy. Based on examples from different countries and regions, this panel analyses the way in which state-led interventions interact with local practices with regards to land access and land use.

- How do people locally find arrangements when confronted with inappropriate or ineffective state rules governing land?

- On the other hand, how do state law and policies take (or do not take) account of customary land tenure and local land use practices?

- Are there noteworthy reform initiatives that succeeded to reconcile an official tenure system with social realities at the local level?

Panel 10 Resolving the National and Agrarian Questions through Land Reforms: The Case of Tanzania and Brazil

Coordinador/a:

Elisa Greco (University of Napoli, L’Orientale)

Nowadays in Tanzania there is no consensus on the role and political weight accorded to the crucial sector of agriculture. The public opinion reflects a heavy political legacy of mistrust towards corrupted parastatal managers, financial mismanagements of marketing boards and government- hijacked cooperatives. On the other side, there is debate over the potential of cooperative marketing as a way of re- capitalizing middle and large rural producers, so that they can scale up production. Once the champion of non-aligned countries and enthusiastic proponent of African visions of socialism, in late ’80s the Tanzanian government surrendered to aggressive neoliberal economic restructuring and had to cut on the pillars of Tanzanian populism: public provision of basic services as health and education and governmental support to agriculture. To date, the tendency to maintain a strong role of the State in these sectors is cause of frictions with multilateral and bilateral donor organizations, on which the national budget depends. In fact, multilateral agencies suggest a model which does not prioritize food security in as much as it focuses on the promotion of non- traditional exports, inviting capitalized producers to focus on those products which can yield higher marginal profits on the international markets. What is the road towards sustainable agricultural development? Is agricultural development possible, and desirable, without a delinking strategy for the country? Should we revisit old ideas about import-substitution and industrialization instead? The panel contributors will try to investigate these issues, within a comparative perspective with the Brazilian experience.

Panel 11 Les politiques d’enregistrement des droits fonciers : du cadre légal aux pratiques locales

Coordination :

Jean-Philippe Colin (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier)

Eric Léonard (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Montpellier)

Ce panel propose un jeu d’études conduites au Mexique, au Bénin, en Côte d’Ivoire et à Madagascar, qui s’attachent à l’analyse des politiques et programmes de reconnaissance des droits fonciers – i.e., à des interventions s’intéressant plus à la nature des droits qu’à leur distribution. De telles interventions constituent le cadre dominant de la politique foncière en Afrique de l’Ouest et à Madagascar, où il s’agit d’intégrer au cadre légal des systèmes fonciers coutumiers, qui organisent sur un mode largement informel la régulation foncière depuis la colonisation C’est aussi le cas au Mexique, où la réforme légale de 1992 a relevé pour partie d’une logique de reconnaissance et de formalisation de pratiques qui s’inscrivaient souvent en contravention du cadre réglementaire de la réforme agraire.

Panel 12 ¿Qué pasó con los beneficiarios de la Reforma agraria en los países andinos?

Coordinador:

Luciano Martínez (Factuldad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales – Quito)

Actualmente en los países andinos están discutiéndose algunas propuestas para disminuir los procesos de concentración de tierra a través del acceso a los recursos. En algunos de ellos se plantea directamente la Reforma Agraria (Bolivia), mientras que en otros, un proceso de entrega de tierra tendiente a disminuir el índice gini (Ecuador).

No obstante, no se recupera para nada la memoria histórica sobre los procesos de reforma agraria de la década de los años sesenta del siglo XX, en donde también se asignó tierra a campesinos y trabajadores sin tierra a través de formas asociativas (cooperativas, asociaciones, comunidades, etc.). No existe una reflexión sistematizada sobre la suerte o el destino de estos grupos de beneficiarios, lo que podría ayudar mucho en el diseño de las actuales políticas públicas de acceso a la tierra que se pretenden impulsar en estos países.

Este panel abriría esta discusión, considerando al menos tres casos del áreas andina: Ecuador, Perú y Bolivia. Se busca dar cuenta de los procesos, el éxito o fracaso de las formas de acceso a la tierra y los cambios que se dieron en un contexto en el cual, la reforma agraria era sin duda el eje central de la política de desarrollo de estos países. Una reflexión de esta naturaleza, sin duda permitirá considerar las bondades o limitaciones de estos procesos que en el momento actual pretenden ser nuevamente activados en base muchas veces a discursos relacionados con el paradigma de la economía social y solidaria o cierto comunitarismo andino que se conservaría casi intacto en sociedades que de hecho han sido transformadas por el mercado.