Grassroots masquerades: Development, paramilitaries, and land laundering in Colombia

Ballvé, Teo

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.08.001

Cited by 72 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Bunong too needed to respond to this rush, often hurrying to rent out their fallow lands to migrants so that they could be cropped in order to gain titles. Thus, cassava has played a key role in ‘land laundering’ – the formalisation of illicit landholdings through the issuing of new titles on recently planted lands (Ballvé, ).…”

Section: Igniting Keo Seima's Cassava Boommentioning

confidence: 99%

Anatomy of a boom: Cassava as a ‘gateway’ crop in Cambodia's north eastern borderland

Mahanty

Milne

2016

Asia Pacific Viewpoint

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This paper examines how a boom in industrial cassava served as a 'gateway' to intensify capitalist relations in Cambodia's north eastern borderland. Situated on Cambodia's border with Vietnam, Mondulkiri province has experienced a rapid increase in cassava production and trade since 2006, with transformative consequences for the region's forests and farmers. Using field data from 2012 to 2014, we explore how the boom ignited and intensified over time, through a conjuncture of conditions. Alongside strong market demand for cassava, these included resource abundance (soil fertility, timber, land, labour), connectivity to markets and cross border networks, and facilitative governance conditions. Over time, the boom strengthened capitalist relations, particularly through farmer debt and the revalorisation and accumulation of land. However, unlike booms of tree crops elsewhere, we argue that it is the very impermanence of cassava that is formative here, because the crop's short-term nature and low overheads facilitate practices like land laundering and land mortgaging. Like the 'gateway drugs' that were believed to place users on a path to addiction and risk, this paper shows that gateway crops such as cassava may similarly place farmers on a trajectory of more intense competition and reduced choice in their engagements with capitalist modes of production.

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Section: Igniting Keo Seima's Cassava Boommentioning

confidence: 99%

Anatomy of a boom: Cassava as a ‘gateway’ crop in Cambodia's north eastern borderland

Mahanty

Milne

2016

Asia Pacific Viewpoint

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“…The importance of rediscovering the link between violent and agrarian conflict has been highlighted in the recent literature (Ballvé, ; Cramer & Richards, ; Thomson, ). Some of this literature has placed special emphasis on the disputes created by the occupation of lands that were abandoned by displaced people, and the way in which agrarian conflicts fuel war, as in the cases of Rwanda (Jones, ), Sudan (Salman, ), and Bosnia (Williams, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Colombian literature has clearly identified the key role of economic and political elites in the country's land dispossession (Gutiérrez & Vargas, 2016;Salinas & Zarama, 2012). State authorities have played a central role in promoting and legalizing the takeover of land by paramilitaries and associated actors (Ballvé, 2013;Observatorio, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

State, war, and land dispossession: The multiple paths to land concentration

Vargas¹,

Uribe

2017

Journal of Agrarian Change

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We focus on the role of the state in land dispossession during war. State agencies promote land accumulation not only through coercive paths, but also by combining political and market mechanisms. Each mechanism may link the state with different actors and coalitions. We illustrate how this worked in Tibú, a Colombian municipality in which violence against civilians and land accumulation took place in more or less distinct phases. The case highlights the fact that land accumulation during war is not only achieved through coercion. At the same time, it shows the importance of identifying the specific coalitions through which states establish their presence in contested territories during war. We explain such variation as resulting from the types of alliances and coalitions that the state establishes with different sets of stakeholders, and the aims pursued by coalition actors.

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“…In theory, states have monopoly powers over their dominions, but, more accurately, these are shared with owners who monopolise whole sectors and regions (Schwartz and Geisler 2015). Gas, oil, timber, water and other extractive oligopolies own or effectively control vast geographies as well as communities within them and provide "public services" on terms they dictate (Ballvé 2013;Watson 2009). Like banks that are "too big to fail", land-endowed corporations can grow too big to regulate, tax or otherwise govern.…”

Section: Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Trophy lands: why elites acquire land and why it matters

Geisler

2015

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

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This article explores the motivations, and some of the consequences, of concentrated land holdings among elites. Within the characterisation of land deals as rentseeking behaviour, three inducements (power, prestige and option value) are found to motivate elites in both the Global North and South. Among the many social and environmental costs of land concentration, two are highlighted here: the privatisation of social property and the profligate use of labour. The article concludes with a call to reframe land reform in terms of land sovereignty, as a means of countering land concentration and the rent-seeking behaviours that animate it.RÉSUMÉ Cet article se penche sur les raisons, et certaines des conséquences, de la concentration des grandes propriétés foncières dans les mains des élites. En caractérisant les transactions foncières comme une recherche de rente apparaissent trois facteurs qui motivent les élites du Nord comme du Sud, soit le pouvoir, le prestige et la valeur d'option. Parmi les nombreux coûts sociaux et environnementaux de la concentration des terres, deux ressortent : la privatisation de la propriété collective et la prodigalité dans l'utilisation de la main d'oeuvre. L'article propose de recadrer les réformes foncières sous l'angle de la souveraineté foncière afin de contrer la concentration des terres et la recherche de rente qui la stimule.

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Grassroots masquerades: Development, paramilitaries, and land laundering in Colombia

Cited by 72 publications

References 21 publications

Anatomy of a boom: Cassava as a ‘gateway’ crop in Cambodia's north eastern borderland

Anatomy of a boom: Cassava as a ‘gateway’ crop in Cambodia's north eastern borderland

State, war, and land dispossession: The multiple paths to land concentration

Trophy lands: why elites acquire land and why it matters

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