Legalising land rights. Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Millions of people live and work on land that they do not legally own in accordance with enforceable state law. The absence of state recognition for local property rights affects people's tenure security and impedes development. Efforts to legalise extra-legal land tenure have traditionally emphasised individual titling and registration. Disappointment with such approaches have led to a search for 'a third way' in land tenure regulation that will reconcile state perspectives with local land rights. This book contributes to the quest for a new pluralistic approach. It combines the description of land tenure regimes in Africa, Latin America and Asia with an analysis of designs, objectives, and actual implementation of specific legalisation programmes

Ciudadanía, cultura política y reforma del Estado en América Latina

[ES] Con este artículo buscamos sugerir algunas pautas para el debate sobre las transformaciones de «la ciudadanía» en América Latina. Después de una breve revisión de los procesos que inciden en las (re)configuraciones de la ciudadanía, argumentamos que la aproximación formal a los derechos y obligaciones ciudadanos debe ser renovada y complementada con una aproximación antropológica; argumentamos también que los procesos de globalización y cambio societal plantean nuevos interrogantes. Una vez sentadas esas temáticas «transversales», elaboramos algunas reflexiones acerca de las principales dimensiones «clásicas» de la ciudadanía (los derechos civiles, políticos y sociales) así como el tema emergente de la ciudadanía étnica.[EN] This article seeks to contribute to the debate over citizenship in Latin America and its (re)configurations. We argue that the formal approach to the rights and duties of the citizen should be renovated and complemented with an anthropological perspective. We also argue that the processes of globalization and societal change raise new questions. Once these «transversal» themes have been discussed, we reflect on the principal «classic» dimensions of citizenship (civil, political and social rights), as well on the issue of the emergent ethnic citizenship

Bolivia and the paradoxes of democratic consolidation

In Bolivia from the 1990s on, two presidents were ousted by popular protests, and protests were rampant. The protests expressed a growing discontent not only with successive administrations and their policies but with politics itself. The polity failed to built trust in democracy, ignored or repressed protests, and thus contributed to a process of democratic "deconsolidation." The main factors were corruption and the reluctance of the traditional political parties to discuss the neoliberal economic model. As a result, the current administration of Evo Morales faces two challenges: to change economic policies and to repair the support for democracy

A ética do silêncio racial no contexto urbano: políticas públicas e desigualdade social no Recife, 1900-1940

Mais de meio século após o preconceito racial ter se tornado o principal alvo dos movimentos urbanos pelos direitos civis nos Estados Unidos e na África do Sul, e décadas depois do surgimento dos movimentos negros contemporâneos no Brasil, o conjunto de ferramentas legislativas criado no Brasil para promover o direito à cidade ainda adere à longa tradição brasileira de silêncio acerca da questão racial. Este artigo propõe iniciar uma exploração das raízes históricas desse fenômeno, remontando ao surgimento do silêncio sobre a questão racial na política urbana do Recife, Brasil, durante a primeira metade do século XX. O Recife foi eé um exemplo paradigmático do processo pelo qual uma cidade amplamente marcada por traços negros e africanos chegou a ser definida política e legalmente como um espaço pobre, subdesenvolvido e racialmente neutro, onde as desigualdades sociais originaram na exclusão capitalista, e não na escravidão e nas ideologias do racismo científico. Neste sentido, Recife lança luzes sobre a política urbana que se gerou sob a sombra do silêncio racial.More than half a century after racial prejudice became central to urban civil rights movements in the United States and South Africa, and decades after the emergence of Brazil’s contemporary Black movements, Brazil's internationally recognized body of rights-to-the-city legislation still adheres to the country's long historical tradition of racial silence. This article explores the historical roots of this phenomenon by focusing on the emergence of racial silence in Recife, Brazil during the first half of the 20th Century. Recife was and remains a paradigmatic example of the process through which a city marked by its Black and African roots came to be legally and politically defined as a poor, underdeveloped and racially neutral space, where social inequalities derived from capitalist exclusion rather than from slavery and scientific racism. As such, Recife'sexperience sheds light on the urban policies that were generated in the shadow of racial silence

Globalism, Localism and Neo-Zapatism

– La otra frontera; identidades múltiples en el Chiapas poscolonial, by Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo. México: CIESAS, Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 2001. English edition: Histories and Stories from Chiapas; Border Identities in Southern Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. – Mayan Visions; The Quest for Autonomy in an Age of Globalization, by June C. Nash. New York and London: Routledge, 2001. – ¡Zapata Lives!; Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico, by Lynn Stephen. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2002

La "media luna" sobre Bolivia: nación, región y clase social

<p>RESUMEN: Durante los últimos años, se ha visto una serie de convulsiones sociales en Bolivia. Un aspecto de estas dificultades fue la aparición de discursos nacionalistas y regionalistas, los cuales dividían la parte oriental de la parte occidental del país, y al revés. Dichos discursos se han caracterizado por sus fuertes matices étnicos y acentuaban por un lado la identidad camba y por otro la identidad colla. No obstante, tales discursos tienen raíces muy distintas y reflejan proyectos y relaciones de clase muy diferentes. Partiendo de la metáfora de la «nevera al revés» (la nevera que genera calor hacia dentro y frío hacia afuera), este artículo busca elucidar la interrelación entre la política nacionalista/regionalista, la etnia y la clase social en la Bolivia contemporánea.</p><p>ABSTRACT: Over the past years Bolivia has seen a series of «social convulsions». One aspect of these upheavals was the emergence of nationalist and regionalist discourses pitting the orient against the occident of the country, and vice versa. Such discourses were marked by strong ethnic overtones, accentuating either camba or colla identities. Nevertheless, such identity discourses have very different roots and reflect very different projects and class relations. Taking a lead from the «inverted fridge» metaphor –the fridge that generates warmth towards the «inside(r)» and cold towards the «outside(r)»– this paper seeks to elucidate the interrelation between the politics of nationalism/regionalism, ethnicity and class in contemporary Bolivia.</p