Agrarian transition in the southern Philippines: more than poverty,dispossession, and violence

ABSTRACT

On the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, scholars have documented a precarious land tenure, livelihood, and security situation for many smallholders. Agrarian political economy studies provide insightful analyses of the underlying causes of much poverty and violence on the island. Less attention has been given to cases of smallholder success. This article proposes that conditions for smallholder farming, even among ethnic minority groups, are more varied across the island than the literature suggests. In upland villages of north-central Mindanao, agrarian transition is a multi-directional process that produces different outcomes among households, kin groups, and villages. The main case study is a thriving mixed swidden and fixed field Maranao-Muslim farming village. Almost all the households in the village have successfully claimed land as their own and diversified and improved their livelihoods in recent times. To explain these positive outcomes, the article uses a relational approach and draws on anthropological literature on kinship, land tenure, and place to assess the bargaining power of smallholders in land deals. A stronger cross-fertilization of key insights in agrarian political economy and anthropological literature on kinship enriches the debate on agrarian transition in the southern Philippines.     

Forest Governance in a Changing World: Reconciling Local and Global Values

Abstract

There has been intense international debate on the governance of forests, in particular tropical forests. This has been driven by contrasting pressures from conservation and human rights groups, respectively calling for global values to prevail so as to protect biodiversity and reduce climate change, or for freedom of choice that empowers local people with the right to manage their own forests. Both sides have condemned irresponsible behaviour by forest officials and political actors, and highlighted the harmful impacts of disregard for the law. However, these normative approaches to forest governance have coincided with a fundamental re-examination of the objectives that societies have for their forest resources. The debate is not only about legality, but also about the legitimacy of forest laws and institutions. This review explores the divergence of views on long-term goals for forests and the implications for their governance. It emphasises that the real challenge is to reconcile the management of forests for values that accrue at different spatial and temporal scales. Forest governance needs to adapt, moving away from a framework based upon the neatly defined boundaries beloved of international organisations and treaties, and submitting to a constant process of adaptation and improvisation at a more local scale. The challenge is to find ways to aggregate such approaches into something that recognisably addresses the global values of forests and forest landscapes. Commonwealth countries have a wide range of forest conditions and are innovating with a range of governance options that provide lessons of potentially wide application.     

Some Long-term Effects of U.S. Control of the Philippines

Abstract

To review some of the long term effects of American colonialism in the Philippines—the only Asian country that we ever directly subordinated to a formal colonial status—will enable us to gain a more vivid, personal appreciation of the record that we have made in another Southeast Asian country during this century.     

Killing the messenger: Environmental reporters under fire in the Philippines

Abstract

In much of the world, reporting on the environment is like reporting on motherhood. It cuts across all political, economic, and social lines, and it's a safe beat. This is not true in the Philippines, where being an environmental reporter means taking on the richest and most powerful forces in the country. It can be, as one reporter put it, “bad for your health.” More to the point, in the Philippines environmental reporting is a life-and-death issue.     

Empire,State and the Bedouin of the Middle East,Past and Present: A Comparative Study of Land and Settlement Policies

The Bedouin of the Middle East have been one of the region's most marginalized groups in modern times. This study assesses the interplay between state policies and the Bedouin in the last 150 years, from a comparative standpoint. We examine the development of land laws in the Middle East as they have affected the Bedouin, from the enactment of the Ottoman land laws of 1858 up to the present. Moreover we explore whether the land laws and the fate of the Bedouin are associated with the characteristics of the regime in each country. We find that the imposition of land laws and policies directed at nomadic and sedentarizing Bedouins has depended on disparate factors such as the origins of the leadership of countries (i.e. Bedouin or non-Bedouin) and the social and economic models embraced. Regimes with origins in the tribal-Bedouin fabric of the Middle East have pursued land policies that were favorable to the Bedouin, whereas regimes drawing their strength from urban elites and with socialist outlooks encouraged very different policies. We also consider whether the case of the Bedouin in Israel is unique or reflects a larger regional context.     

Illusions of Influence; The Political Economy of United States Philippines Relations, 1942–1960, by Nick Cullather; Managing Nationalism: United States National Security Council Documents on the Philippines, 1953–1960, by Nick Cullather,ed.

Abstract

Nick Cullather has mined archives in the United States and the Philippines, many of them recently opened, to produce these two books. Both volumes provide much new evidence on and many important insights into the U.S.-Philippine relationship, but Cullather aspires to do more than this; he claims to offer an alternative interpretation of that relationship, challenging the view shared by dependency theorists in the United States and nationalist historians in the Philippines.     

Social cohesion for the unfinished business of land reform in South Africa

Abstract

This article aims to discuss social cohesion as an alternative instrument to address the ever dragging land question in South Africa. Although there are various activities that have been undertaken and policy programmes that have been proposed, all those initiatives have not been able to completely translate land reform policy into practice as intended. Other than recognising the ‘willing seller-willing buyer’ policy which appears not to have been internalised by the stakeholders concerned, this article also presents a transformative approach for both white land owners and black emerging farmers to work together in a tolerant and amicable manner. The most critical step that is required for land reform in the whole country is a public consultation process for government to be able to engage with all parties and to put a list of informed alternatives on the table for discussion. Obviously, that includes the willing seller willing buyer policy. Based on the outcomes of such discussions, the government has to play a mediation role to heal the racial division caused by the Natives Land Act of 1913. In short, this discussion presents social cohesion to heal the past without land owners perceiving transformation policies as apartheid in reverse.     

Struggles for land and livelihood

Abstract

Scholars, policy practitioners, and political activists alike have had difficulty grappling with the complex dynamics that have unfolded over the past decade and a half in Philippine banana plantations in the context of the 1988 agrarian reform law. While some focus their attention exclusively on land redistribution issues, others concentrate on the modalities of contract farming and still others emphasize trade union issues — all to the neglect of underlying agrarian dynamics. Relatively few have attempted a more integrated examination of developments in this sector of the Philippine economy. The still-limited availability of studies of land-reform-related experiences in agribusiness plantations outside the Philippines further constrains our understanding of the issues arising in Philippine plantations. This article tries to build on and deepen previous attempts at understanding the complex and confusing dynamics involving the banana elite, the state, and various segments of organized farmworkers and to fill in an important gap in the literature, using an integrated, rights-based, and process-oriented historical-institutional approach. It cites two reasons for an unexpectedly contingent land reform process in commercial banana farms in the Philippines: (1) the surprisingly unsettled character of the prevailing political-legal institutional environment within which land and livelihood struggles are playing out, and (2) the diverse perceptions among farmworkers of the meaning and purpose of, and opportunity for, land reform.     

Source material on Philippine revolutionary movements

Abstract

For the American Asian scholar, the research and writing of Philippine history is still in its virginal stages. Both in the United States and in the Philippines itself the study of that history has progressed little deeper than the officially-expressed record, in which the viewpoint of dominant interests has prevailed. Neglected in particular have been the revolutionary forces and movements that have played such a central part in the Philippines for the past century.     

The Philippines: Another Vietnam?

Abstract

The historic relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines today gives an exceptional importance to the massive economic and strategic legacy of over 70 years of American domination of that nation. Apart from its prime significance to the future of American military power in Asia after the Indochina debacle, the Philippines is the most important example of a sustained U.S. effort to transform a Third World country in its own image. Now, with a martial-law regime's fate very much in doubt and the U.S.'s economic investments and military bases all hanging in the balance, the objective pressures for a potentially open-ended American commitment to preserve its interests and credibility in yet one more Asian nation are again re-emerging in a form substantially more compulsive than those in Indochina before 1965.     

Review Essay: The Philippines

Abstract

The five papers gathered together in this book examine events leading up to the declaration of martial law in the Philippines by President Ferdinand E. Marcos on September 21, 1972, and the nature of the authoritarian regime that has been in power since that date. They were first presented at the 1974 meetings of the Association of Asian Studies, although the editor indicates that they have been updated to include relevant events through May, 1978.     

Land Acquisition,Investment, and Development in the Lao Coffee Sector: Successes and Failures

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing acknowledgment of scholars and practitioners that many large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in developing countries fail or never materialize, empirical evidence about how and why they fail to date is still scarce. Too often, land deals are portrayed as straightforward investments and their success is taken for granted. Looking at the coffee sector in Laos, the authors of this article explore dimensions of the land grab debate that have not yet been sufficiently examined. Coffee concessionaires in southern Laos often fail to use all of the land granted them and fail to produce high yields on the land they do use. Thus, the authors challenge the often-assumed superiority and effectiveness of large-scale versus small-scale production, specifically the argument that they modernize agricultural production and optimize land use. They argue that examining failed investments is as important as studying successful ones for understanding the implications of the land grabbing phenomenon for social, economic, and environmental outcomes. Knowledge about the scale of “failed land deals” provides important motivation for national governments to close the gap between intentions and actual outcomes. This article engages with the current debate on quality of investment and challenges the approach of employing land concessions as a vehicle for economic development in the Lao coffee sector and in other sectors and countries.     

Adivasiness as Caste Expression and Land Rights Claim-Making in Central-Eastern India

ABSTRACT

The adivasi population represents a special case in India’s new land wars. Strong individual and community rights to agricultural and forest lands have been enacted for this group based on notions of adivasi identities as primeval, but without linking these to economic and political influence. This article interrogates the adivasi land question seen through a caste lens. It does so via case studies in two states to understand the ways in which adivasi identity can be mobilised for its instrumental value and used to demand land rights. In Andhra Pradesh, the Supreme Court’s Samatha Judgement has prevented virtually all private mining activities. In Jharkhand, however, similar legislation is seen to be trumped by the national Coal Bearing Areas Act, as well as by former and current land acquisition acts that allow industrial land claims to take precedence over identity-based ones. Available evidence indicates the challenges involved in bringing support for land rights that are premised on a supposedly unchanging adivasi identity when these rights go against dominant interests. This circumstance serves to highlight the possibilities present in caste analysis to understand the plight of adivasis, despite their usually distinct treatment in scholarly analyses.     

American neo-colonialism in the Philippines

Abstract

This is one of those rare books that are small in size but heavy in substance and should be read and studied widely. It presents a well-documented indictment of American neocolonialist imperialism in the Philippines since its independence in 1946. Several earlier works have described in detail the classical form of American imperialism in the Philippines through military conquest and direct colonial rule and have helped suggest a close parallel between the conduct of the Philippine-American war and the American-Vietnamese war. However, America's continuing, pervasive domination of Philippine national life since 1946 has not been well appreciated except by a few perceptive and persistent observers of the Philippine scene. The neocolonial status of the Philippines in relation to the United States has generally remained concealed behind the facade of Philippine “independence” and “sovereignty.” Filipino presidents and other members of the Philippine establishment have helped hide the truth by proclaiming pro-Americanism as the cornerstone of their policy. President Manuel Roxas in 1946 not only vindicated American rule over the Philippines by expressing gratitude for Dewey's victory over the Spanish forces in 1898, but also affirmed close alignment with the United States in foreign affairs. This has meant that not only did the Philippines refuse to affirm Afro-Asian solidarity but, worse, it often took a simulated “initiative” in putting forth proposals designed to subserve American cold war interests. One example was the proposed Pacific Pact of 1950, calculated to stem Chinese communist “expansion.” Close alignment with the United States discredited the Philippines as odd-man-out in Asia. In the Philippines itself, the perpetuation of American dominance had tragic effects for the Filipino people and the Philippine nation-state. Foreign observers, especially from non-aligned countries, were puzzled and angered by the pro-Americanism of Philippine foreign policy. Filipinos themselves vented their frustration and fury in an intellectual, nationalist outburst against the lingering “colonial mentality.”     

Restoring degraded landscapes: Assessing the utility of biodiversity offsets for the business sector in Africa

Abstract

Increasing pressure for the conversion of tropical and sub-tropical wetlands and forests to alternative land usage raises the possibility that biodiversity offsets will increasingly take centre stage in biodiversity conservation planning and ecosystem restoration discourses. This article explores the major discourses on and utility of biodiversity offsets in the African context with a view to identifying and articulating some of the challenges and opportunities evident in attempts to operationalise the concept in practice. The discussion establishes that as intuitively pleasing as they have become in recent years, with potentially large benefits expected to be derived from offset initiatives, several significant hurdles need to be overcome for them to become well established practice in Africa. For instance, some observers have argued strongly that, in practice, land use and wetland mitigation in most countries have come nowhere near achieving the goal of ‘no-net-loss’. There are also enduring questions about the credibility of the formulae used to calculate net-losses and net-gains in biodiversity offset schemes. In the light of these and other outstanding questions, the article concludes that biodiversity offsets may seem simple but are much more complex to design and implement to the extent that they become really convincing as a conservation tool for businesses in Africa.     

Additional source materials on Philippine radical movements

Abstract

William Pomeroy's bibliographical essay is useful for future scholarship. I would, however, like to offer some supplementary information based upon my research and writing about radical peasant movements in the Philippines for the 1944-56 period. There is a wealth of information to explore, both in the Philippines and in the United States, and there is hope that radical movements in the Philippines will be given the proper recognition they deserve. In particular, the post-World War II Huk movement has been pictured for too long simply in terms of a counter-insurgency problem for the Philippine and United States governments. Using alternative sources, the Huks can be seen from the perspective of the participants themselves.     

The irreversibility of history: the case of the Ukrainian crisis (2013–2015)

Abstract

Today’s Ukraine figures as the land of irreconcilable differences, on the verge of disintegrating into different parts. Issues regarding nation-building processes, national identity types within the main ethnic communities, as well as regional political preferences have all become critical. Thus, this paper examines how enduring regional political preferences, embedded in a fragmented and porous national identity framework, have been serving as destabilizing factors in the eastern part of the country. The conclusions offer an understanding of the 2013–2015 crisis, while they can also be extrapolated to other regions of the ex-Soviet space.     

Comments by Arif Dirlik,November 1987 Chinese socialism and problems of Marxism

Abstract

In the year since John Anglim's article was written, many events have affected the future of the island microrepublic. Although the new administrations in Koror and Washington began 1989 on a hopeful note, it rapidly became clear how much Palau's options had been limited by the United States. By the year's end, Palauans were scheduled to go to the polls once again to vote on the Compact of Free Association they have rejected six times in the last six years, with no change in the fundamental issues of land rights, nuclear materials, and sovereignty. Regardless of the outcome, which could go either way, Palau faces a difficult and uncertain future.     

Large-scale land deals,global capital and the politics of livelihoods: Experiences of women small-holder farmers in Chisumbanje,Zimbabwe

Abstract

Large scale land acquisitions by foreign conglomerates in Zimbabwe have been a recurrent phenomenon within the last five years. This has led to land deals being negotiated with state, individual and nongovernmental actors, leading to the production of agro fuels. This article investigates how the large scale commercial land deals have affected the livelihoods of women small holder farmers, the role of global capital in entrenching discrimination of women and how the politics of resource use and distribution has become a central force in shaping livelihoods in Zimbabwe's communal areas. The article is based on field work that was conducted in Ndowoyo communal area, in Chisumbanje village, from July 2011 until April 2012. The methods used for collecting data were in-depth interviews with the women, interviews with officials from the Platform for Youth Development, a nongovernmental organisation, Macdom Pvt Ltd and Ratings Investments, focus group discussions and personal observations that involved interactions with the women. In 2011, Macdom Pvt Ltd and Ratings Investments, both bio fuels companies owned by Billy Rautenbach started green fuel production operations in Chisumbanje and this has led to the altering of the livelihoods systems of women smallholder farmers. The argument seeks, first, to demonstrate how the company‘s green fuel production systems have led to the loss of land for women and the redefinition of tenure in a communal area. Secondly it explores how the company has been involved in political issues that have undermined the role of development for the women and, thirdly, the article investigates how the women have created livelihood alternatives in an area which has been transformed from a communal rural area into almost an urban area. It concludes by suggesting the need to give primacy to women centred notions of agency in coping with the negative implications of commercial land deals on women‘s livelihoods.     

Media Dissent and Peri-urban Land Struggles in Vietnam: The Case of the Văn Giang Incident

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of media-led dissent in Vietnam's contemporary land struggles. The analysis focuses on Vietnamese-language material published online by domestic and foreign media about the so-called V?n Giang incident – a high-profile land dispute that shook the country between 2009 and 2012. Looking at how the media treated this incident broadens studies of land struggles in Vietnam, which up till now have focused on peasants’ resistance strategies. This case not only shows that media practitioners engage in dissent with regard to land politics, but also that they engage in more straightforward criticism of the state and its corporate redevelopment partners than what most analyses of rural land struggles in Vietnam, centered on the micro-level and on “lawful” (O'Brien) forms of resistance, would lead one to believe. Illustrating this point, the author shows that media dissent throughout the V?n Giang land dispute openly challenged the government's justificatory discourse about “displacement for development” as well as the mismanagement of land resources on which political and economic elites rely to dispossess peasants from peri-urban lands. If it has not yet provoked major institutional changes, the media's contribution to land struggles has nevertheless succeeded in creating a genuine, national public debate on land politics in rapidly urbanizing Vietnam.