The Social Lives of Land

by Michael Goldman (Editor), Nancy Lee Peluso (Editor), Wendy Wolford (Editor)

Overview

From the shaping of new homelands in the Cherokee Nation to the export of sand from Cambodia to shore up urban expansion in Singapore, The Social Lives of Land reveals the dynamics of contemporary social and political change.

The editors of this volume bring together contributions from across multiple disciplines and geographic locations. The contributions showcase novel theoretical and empirical insights, analyzing how people are living on, with, and from their land. From Mozambique to India, Indonesia, Ecuador, and the colonial United States, the scholars in this collection uncover histories and retell stories with a focus on the lived experiences of rural and urban land dispossession and repossession.

Contributors: Kati Álvarez, Clint Carroll, Flora Lu, Richard Mbunda, Gregg Mitman, Paul Nadasdy, Robert Nichols, Andrew Ofstehage, Laura Schoenberger, Kirsteen Shields, Emmanuel Sulle, Erik Swyngedouw, Gabriela Valdivia, Katherine Verdery, Callum Ward, Ciara Wirth, Emmanuel King Urey Yarkpawolo

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501771248
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2024
Series:	Cornell Series on Land: New Perspectives on Territory, Development, and Environment
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael Goldman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Imperial Nature and editor of Privatizing Nature.

Nancy Lee Peluso is the Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Rich Forests, Poor People and coeditor of Violent Environments.

Wendy Wolford is Vice Provost for International Affairs and Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development at Cornell University. She is the coeditor of Governing Global Land Deals and The New Enclosures.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Social Lives of Land
1. Colonization and the Recoding of Land in Classical Political Economy
2. Shaping New Homelands: Colonial Politics of Land Relations and Management in the Cherokee Nation
3. "I am Waorani": Between Indigenous and Settler Land Ontologies in the Ecuadorian Amazon
4. What is Land? Ontology, Practice, and Indeterminacy
5. The Autobiography of a Transylvanian Land Parcel:From Late Feudalism to Postsocialism
6. From Sand to Land
7. Wasteland and Paradise Garden: Building Soil in the Brazilian Cerrado
8. Mobile Labor, Shifting Land Regimes, and Social Reproduction in East Java, Indonesia
9. "Incompatible with a Progressive Agriculture": The Role of Manioc in Colonial and Postcolonial Visions for Landand Labor in Mozambique
10. "Sitting on Old Mats to Plait New": The Gendered Struggle over Land and Livelihood in Liberia
11. Producing Assets: The Social Strife of Land
12. The Financialized and Dispossessed: Transforming Land and Lives into Speculative Assets
13. People, Livelihoods, and Contested Meanings of Land in Tanzania
14. Dances with Lairds: Lessons from Scottish Land Reform

What People are Saying About This

Derek Hall

The Social Lives of Land provides a jumping-off point for the land debates of the future. A book to read from cover to cover.

Jonathan Rigg

The Social Lives of Land is notable in its geographical reach, methodological range, and theoretical ambition.