Settled in Sand: State-making, Recognition and Resource Rights in the Agro-industrial Landscape

Inge-Merete Hougaard

Settled in Sand: State-making, Recognition and Resource Rights in the Agro-industrial Landscape

Inge-Merete Hougaard

Abstract

Across the world, economic interests and state-making interventions have converged to dispossess small-scale farmers, rural and urban dwellers – often through violent means. This often affectsracialised or ethnic minorities – or people on the edge of these categories – disproportionally. Sit uated in the sugarcane plantation landscape in the Cauca Valley in western Colombia, this dissertation explores how life is lived after dispossession. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Afro-descendant village Brisas del Frayle for a total of ten months during the years 2016-2018. I employed an activist approach combining participatory observation, informal conversations, and meeting attendance, with semi-structured interviews, document reviews and audio-visual methods. Drawing on literature from political ecology, state-making and the politics of recognition, I look into how capitalist interests intersect with neoliberal governance and the silent threat of violence to produce, mask and legitimise dispossessions. This thesis illustrates how regional political and economic elites in the Cauca Valley throughout history have shaped the landscape according to their interests through discourses and landscaping techniques, ultimately conditioning it for sugarcane plantations, and restricting other forms of production. What upholds life in the agro-industrial margins, I argue, is the construction of independent livelihoods – particularly manual sand extraction – and seasonal labour, as well as notions and values of community, dignity and relations of recognition. In the search to improve conditions of life through relations with local political and economic elites, the villagers recognise these actors as local authorities, effectively legitimising existing rural inequalities. In a context where global sand extraction is often connected to conflict and environmental problems, the villagers show that sand extraction can take place in a socially responsible and environmentally concerned manner, and is even part of constructing community, autonomy and dignity in the village. Nevertheless, the villagers in Brisas del Frayle are drawn into the state domain to defend their right to resources against a competing mining claimant, who seeks to privatise the right to extraction. Seeking recognition, protection and formalisation in the statutory institutions, the villagers are faced with a complex legal and institutional framework favouring the wealthy, lettered and connected population, through which political and economic interests converge in new forms of dispossession. Although ethnic recognition and collective titling open an opportunity for protection and resource control, the mechanism of ex-situ titling indirectly adds to dispossession by liberating resources for capitalist appropriation. Thus, I argue, while life in the margins is endured through notions and values of community, dignity, autonomy and recognition, political-economic interests continue to converge to produce, mask and legitimise new forms of dispossession, upholding and deepening inequalities in the agro-industrial landscape.

Originalsprog	Engelsk

Forlag	Department of Food Science, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen
Status	Udgivet - 2019

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title = "Settled in Sand: State-making, Recognition and Resource Rights in the Agro-industrial Landscape",

abstract = "Across the world, economic interests and state-making interventions have converged to dispossess small-scale farmers, rural and urban dwellers – often through violent means. This often affectsracialised or ethnic minorities – or people on the edge of these categories – disproportionally. Sit uated in the sugarcane plantation landscape in the Cauca Valley in western Colombia, this dissertation explores how life is lived after dispossession. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Afro-descendant village Brisas del Frayle for a total of ten months during the years 2016-2018. I employed an activist approach combining participatory observation, informal conversations, and meeting attendance, with semi-structured interviews, document reviews and audio-visual methods. Drawing on literature from political ecology, state-making and the politics of recognition, I look into how capitalist interests intersect with neoliberal governance and the silent threat of violence to produce, mask and legitimise dispossessions. This thesis illustrates how regional political and economic elites in the Cauca Valley throughout history have shaped the landscape according to their interests through discourses and landscaping techniques, ultimately conditioning it for sugarcane plantations, and restricting other forms of production. What upholds life in the agro-industrial margins, I argue, is the construction of independent livelihoods – particularly manual sand extraction – and seasonal labour, as well as notions and values of community, dignity and relations of recognition. In the search to improve conditions of life through relations with local political and economic elites, the villagers recognise these actors as local authorities, effectively legitimising existing rural inequalities. In a context where global sand extraction is often connected to conflict and environmental problems, the villagers show that sand extraction can take place in a socially responsible and environmentally concerned manner, and is even part of constructing community, autonomy and dignity in the village. Nevertheless, the villagers in Brisas del Frayle are drawn into the state domain to defend their right to resources against a competing mining claimant, who seeks to privatise the right to extraction. Seeking recognition, protection and formalisation in the statutory institutions, the villagers are faced with a complex legal and institutional framework favouring the wealthy, lettered and connected population, through which political and economic interests converge in new forms of dispossession. Although ethnic recognition and collective titling open an opportunity for protection and resource control, the mechanism of ex-situ titling indirectly adds to dispossession by liberating resources for capitalist appropriation. Thus, I argue, while life in the margins is endured through notions and values of community, dignity, autonomy and recognition, political-economic interests continue to converge to produce, mask and legitimise new forms of dispossession, upholding and deepening inequalities in the agro-industrial landscape.",

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N2 - Across the world, economic interests and state-making interventions have converged to dispossess small-scale farmers, rural and urban dwellers – often through violent means. This often affectsracialised or ethnic minorities – or people on the edge of these categories – disproportionally. Sit uated in the sugarcane plantation landscape in the Cauca Valley in western Colombia, this dissertation explores how life is lived after dispossession. The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Afro-descendant village Brisas del Frayle for a total of ten months during the years 2016-2018. I employed an activist approach combining participatory observation, informal conversations, and meeting attendance, with semi-structured interviews, document reviews and audio-visual methods. Drawing on literature from political ecology, state-making and the politics of recognition, I look into how capitalist interests intersect with neoliberal governance and the silent threat of violence to produce, mask and legitimise dispossessions. This thesis illustrates how regional political and economic elites in the Cauca Valley throughout history have shaped the landscape according to their interests through discourses and landscaping techniques, ultimately conditioning it for sugarcane plantations, and restricting other forms of production. What upholds life in the agro-industrial margins, I argue, is the construction of independent livelihoods – particularly manual sand extraction – and seasonal labour, as well as notions and values of community, dignity and relations of recognition. In the search to improve conditions of life through relations with local political and economic elites, the villagers recognise these actors as local authorities, effectively legitimising existing rural inequalities. In a context where global sand extraction is often connected to conflict and environmental problems, the villagers show that sand extraction can take place in a socially responsible and environmentally concerned manner, and is even part of constructing community, autonomy and dignity in the village. Nevertheless, the villagers in Brisas del Frayle are drawn into the state domain to defend their right to resources against a competing mining claimant, who seeks to privatise the right to extraction. Seeking recognition, protection and formalisation in the statutory institutions, the villagers are faced with a complex legal and institutional framework favouring the wealthy, lettered and connected population, through which political and economic interests converge in new forms of dispossession. Although ethnic recognition and collective titling open an opportunity for protection and resource control, the mechanism of ex-situ titling indirectly adds to dispossession by liberating resources for capitalist appropriation. Thus, I argue, while life in the margins is endured through notions and values of community, dignity, autonomy and recognition, political-economic interests continue to converge to produce, mask and legitimise new forms of dispossession, upholding and deepening inequalities in the agro-industrial landscape.

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