New article by Tomaso Ferrando , Isabel Álvarez Vispo , Molly Anderson , Sophie Dowllar ,Harriet Friedmann , Antonio Gonzalez , Chandra Maracle & Nora McKeon – “Land, territory and commons: voices and visionsfrom the struggles”
Abstract
All over the world, financial capitalism and extractivism are appropriating land as if it was nothing more than a commodity, a mere ‘factor’ of production that can be exploited to generate financial returns. Movements and activists are organizing, resisting, protecting and promoting life-giving visions against this continuous enclosure of living beings and paces: they use their bodies, laws, educational projects, histories and visions to regain control over territory as a political space, self-determine and create solidarities. In the act resistance, they are the target of moral, physical and legal violence. They and their ideas are criminalized, disciplined, punished and in some cases exterminated. In this contribution, activists from the Basque Country, Guatemala, Kenya and the Six Nations and a group of academics get together to learn from each other, support the ongoing search for common vocabularies and identify possible milestones of a coordinated and international strategy for a life-enhancing future.
Posted: 10th September 2020 by Lotte van der Heijden
Mekong Land Research Forum | Call to Join Their Research Network
The Mekong Land Research Forum is the primary resource for informed research, education, and advocacy around land relations in the Mekong region. Together with Chiang Mai University and partners, it nurtures the next generation of researchers on land. The Mekong Land Research Forum seeks to encourage research on land governance, connect researchers, and utilise their skills and knowledge to disseminate key messages on land relations in the Mekong Region. Key features of the network are:
The application form to join their research network can be found here.
Last Updated: 2nd March 2021 by Coordinator
LANDac & Partners | Brief Series Land, Housing, and COVID-19
By Karol Boudreaux (Landesa), Alexandre Corriveau-Bourque (Norwegian Refugee Council), Yuliya Panfil (New America), and Chantal Wieckardt (LANDac)
Following the Webinar Series and Online Discussion on Land Rights Implications of COVID-19, LANDac, together with Landesa, the Land Portal Foundation, New America and the Norwegian Refugee Council published a Brief Series on the impact of COVID-19 on Land and Housing.
In the six months since the coronavirus began its global spread, more than 15 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 600,000 have perished. Governments around the world have instituted lockdowns and shut down businesses. Entire industries have been devastated, notably travel, hospitality, and entertainment in the formal sector, and day labor and street and market vendors in the informal sector. Overall, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have lost their livelihoods.
These facts are well known. But less documented are the various implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the land and property rights of billions of people around the world. This series of briefs, inspired by and sourced heavily from the Land Portal’s Land and COVID-19 webinar and discussion series, spotlights a selection of these challenges, and provides suggestions for how they may be addressed.
You can read the briefs here, or download them below.
Last Updated: 1st September 2020 by Lotte van der Heijden
MDPI | Using a Gender-Responsive Land Rights Framework to Assess Youth Land Rights in Rural Liberia
This article by Louis, Mauto, Dodd, Heidenrich, Dolo and Urey (2020) was published in Land and summarizes the evidence on youth land rights in Liberia from a literature review combined with primary research from two separate studies:
(1) A qualitative assessment conducted as formative research to inform the design of the Land Rights and Sustainable Development (LRSD) project for Landesa and its partners’ community level interventions;
(2) a quantitative baseline survey of program beneficiaries as part of an evaluation of the LRSD project.
The findings are presented using a Gender-Responsive Land Rights Framework that examines youth land rights through a gender lens. The evidence highlights that female and male youth in Liberia face significant but different barriers to long-term access to land, as well as to participation in decisions related to land. The suggested recommendations offer insights for the implementation of Liberia’s recently passed Land Rights Act as well as for community-level interventions focused on increasing youth land tenure security in Liberia.
Please click here to access the full article.
Last Updated: 9th November 2020 by Lotte van der Heijden
FAO | Webinar on Youth Innovation in Land, Soil and Water, Now Available to Watch Online
The engagement of youth and young professionals plays a key role achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since today’s youth are more geographically mobile and technologically connected than any other generation. In the context of COVID-19 pandemic, intergenerational exchange and cooperation is even more crucial to bridge past experiences with innovative ideas, driving the creation of holistic solutions.
The session delivered lightning talks from young professionals on how youth and innovation go hand in hand to deliver solutions, on land, soil and water resources management, for a sustainable tomorrow. The objectives of the webinar were as follows:
The full webinar can be watched here.
Last Updated: 1st September 2020 by Lotte van der Heijden
ILC Asia | 2019 Annual Report: Multi Stakeholder Dialogue on Land Governance
In 2019, ILC Asia continued to provide a space for dialogue among stakeholders in the region, putting people at the heart of land governance. This report “Multi-stakeholder Dialogue and Land Governance in Asia” is based on the ILC Asia 2019 Annual Report. It features some of their impact stories brought forth after the 2018 Regional Assembly in Bandung, Indonesia.
Please click here to download and read the full report.
Last Updated: 1st September 2020 by Lotte van der Heijden
GLTN | Darfur Land Administration Assessment: Analysis and Recommendations
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and the UN-Habitat Sudan Country Programme, in close collaboration with the United Nations Country Team of Sudan, the United Nations – African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and the Darfur Land Commission, published the ‘Darfur Land Administration Assessment: Analysis and Recommendations’ report.
The report assesses the statutory and customary land administration systems in the five Darfur states and provides guidance on how to secure land and property rights of the people voluntarily returning to Darfur and of other vulnerable groups. It determines gaps in the overall capacity and the capacities needed to address the challenges, and it identifies sets of early recommendations, strategies and priorities for action.
Furthermore, the report includes a set of short-term recommendations for concrete actions on land governance, land-use planning, land information management and dispute-resolution mechanisms, and it proposes some capacity development approaches for government, Native Land Administrations, community-based and civil society organisations, academia and land professionals.
Please click here to read and download the full report.
LANDac is proud that our LANDac fellow Salah Abukashawa has been leading this work as land administration expert.
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
University of Amsterdam | Junior Researcher Housing Market and Migrants in the Netherlands
Are you interested in conducting research, especially in the field of the housing market and migrants in the Netherlands? This short term research project is a collaboration of the University of Amsterdam (GPIO) and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL).
The aim of the research project is to get more insight into the housing careers of various migrant populations in the Netherlands. How do they unfold over the years and what influences residential trajectories of migrant populations?
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
Springer | Juxtapositions in Jakarta: How Flood Interventions Reinforce and Challenge Urban Divides
New article by Roanne van Voorst in Urban Forum – “Juxtapositions in Jakarta: How Flood Interventions Reinforce and Challenge Urban Divides”.
Abstract
This paper traces the interplay of spatially, socially and legally juxtaposed differences between different groups of Indonesia’s residents: (1) a group of riverbank settlers in Jakarta, (2) political decision-makers and urban planners that evict this particular riverbank settlement and (3) a group of Jakartan academics, architects and journalists that got involved in these interventions. The dynamics between and within these groups are examined through a case study in a riverbank settlement, where inhabitants are not only at risk of regular flooding but also of evictions. The analysis combines the notion of juxtapositions with a ‘revelatory approach’ towards disaster. The notion of juxtapositions makes clear how urban divides are shaped, and how they, in turn, produce ideas and practices of citizenship in Jakarta. The revelatory approach to disasters helps to show that floods can function as an accelerator to both reinforce and challenge these juxtapositions, thus also changing citizenship ideas and practices. The analysis reveals on the one hand that floods and interventions deepen socio-economic inequalities in an already highly unequal city. However, on the other hand, they also trigger collective mobilisation of evictees as well as unprecedented cooperation between this particular group of riverbank settlers and more resourceful members of Jakarta’s wider society. This eventually results in successful contestation of evictions through court and other claims to citizenship.
Last Updated: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
T&F | Land, territory and commons: voices and visions from the struggles
New article by Tomaso Ferrando , Isabel Álvarez Vispo , Molly Anderson , Sophie Dowllar ,Harriet Friedmann , Antonio Gonzalez , Chandra Maracle & Nora McKeon – “Land, territory and commons: voices and visionsfrom the struggles”
Abstract
All over the world, financial capitalism and extractivism are appropriating land as if it was nothing more than a commodity, a mere ‘factor’ of production that can be exploited to generate financial returns. Movements and activists are organizing, resisting, protecting and promoting life-giving visions against this continuous enclosure of living beings and paces: they use their bodies, laws, educational projects, histories and visions to regain control over territory as a political space, self-determine and create solidarities. In the act resistance, they are the target of moral, physical and legal violence. They and their ideas are criminalized, disciplined, punished and in some cases exterminated. In this contribution, activists from the Basque Country, Guatemala, Kenya and the Six Nations and a group of academics get together to learn from each other, support the ongoing search for common vocabularies and identify possible milestones of a coordinated and international strategy for a life-enhancing future.
Posted: 31st July 2020 by Coordinator
EADI | Blog Prize for outstanding posts on PhD research
EADI cordially invites you to present your PhD in their blog series! All accepted and published blog posts will be featured in the fortnightly EADI newsletter and via social media. During the publishing process, we will help you with the editing and with becoming familiar with the rather casual and journalistic blogging style.