Sub-theme 6. The drama of the grabbed commons
Panel 6.6.
Impact of Commons Grabbing on Long-Standing Food Coping Strategies – Local Responses and Agency
In the context of the food crisis and rising commodities prices, land is highly sought after by foreign investors and certain states. International environmental organisations put additional pressure on land to protect biodiversity and large-scale natural zones from environmentally harmful activities. Both cases promise sustainable land and resource management that provides efficient production and employment generation that promote economic growth in host countries of the Global South. However, the exclusion of marginal groups and women from the benefits and the transformative impacts on local food systems are often concealed or not even addressed. The post-colonial transformation of local food systems, which are shaped by different coping strategies, is not only caused by modernization and climate change, but its intersection with changes in institutional conditions of local tenure systems of land and land-related common-pool resources. We are interested in understanding how previous coping strategies, often based on a long-standing cultural landscape with local common-property institutions and influencing the identity of entire communities along with their social networks and cohesion, are undermined in certain regions by the expropriation of land and commons. Resilience grabbing is, thus, a consequence of commons grabbing. Furthermore, we invite contributions addressing the reactions of local communities and ask what new power relations and social constellations result from this? With this panel we would like to emphasize the agency perspective of local communities and give space to the experiences of the people who have to re-adapt long-standing strategies and traditions to counteract the imposed vulnerability regarding food security.
1. Transformations of food systems in the context of climate change, agro-industrial developments and conservation and local reactions in the Senegal River Valley
University of Bern, Switzerland
In the areas of Fanaye and the Ndiael and Nayré Reserves in the Senegal River Valley, resources traditionally belonged to spirits that allowed people to use them, adapted to the ecosystem of the river (floodplains), and being part of diversified and adapted common property systems of ethnic groups (Fulani, Soninké, Maures, Wolof). The traditional agricultural system involved cropping, fishing and grazing of livestock, all symbiotic and reciprocal activities being oriented towards the flood. Agriculture (millet and sorghum) was rain-fed and based on jeery (sandy) and waalo (floodplains) production. This strengthened food security of the different groups, and reduced vulnerability of local food systems. However, the delta has been a target area of irrigated rice production, which is done mainly in the floodplains, supported by dam construction, involving land redistribution and changes in CPR institutions. Furthermore, the area has been targeted by large-scale agro-industrial investments and conservation measures in the form of the establishment of the Ndiael and the Nayré reserves. All changes, and in the context of climate change, resulted in reduced access to grazing land especially for Fulani herders, to forest products, to fish and to farmland. People now have to cope with the impacts of these transformations demanding new forms of individual coping strategies (labor migration, new labor relations) increasing food vulnerability, tensions in families but also have resulted in local protests against investors.
2. Decommonization, Caste and Dispossession:Evidences from a village study in Telangana, India
1School of Economics, University of Hyderabad, India, 2School of Development, Azim Premji University, India
The nature of appropriation of commons historically represented a quest for conversion of pastures, forest lands and cultivable/uncultivable lands into agricultural lands. The pursuit of expansion of agriculture was driven by both state as well as individual households.States aimed at extracting revenue while the individuals who cleared land for agriculture aimed for subsistence and livelihood.The control upon commons and agrarian lands ordained upon the local lords by state enabled dominant castes to exercise their power upon the marginalized sections to control their labour for personal gains. The current appropriation of commons is driven by non-agrarian pursuits. The ruthless expansion of real-estate ventures not only consumes an existing privatized property, they simultaneously eat into the assigned lands of the state meant to cater to the needs of landless and disadvantaged castes in providing housing and enabling access to land. Our study in a village of Narva, in Telangana which is based on a survey of 149 households predominantly composed of Scheduled Castes, accompanied by a detailed survey of land records, cadastral maps and historical imagery of google earth reveals a process of usurpation of the lands meant for landless poor for the purpose of housing by dominant castes holding positions of power. The village became a site of real-estate expansion with the establishment of Thermal power plant and the expansion of National-Highway-63 from two lanes to four lanes. The paper unravels several exclusionary processes and their persistence in present context by unravelling the nexus between caste, power and decommonization of commons.
3. A Collective Resource Assurance in Change: Re-Adapting Common Rice Production in Casamance, Senegal
University of Berne, Switzerland
The Casamance in southern Senegal is a region with fertile land on which rice has been cultivated since many centuries. Despite these preconditions, the Department of Oussouye in the southwest of Casamance is not yet known for large scale land acquisition and/or commons grabbing. Nevertheless, narratives voiced by the MFDC (Mouvement des forces démocratiques de la Casamance) to legitimise the rebellions for independence suggest that the inhabitants of Casamance fear acquisition of the fertile land by the northern Senegalese population.
The rebellions that have consistently flashed up since 1982 as well as changes in land tenure rights have shifted traditional land tenure systems. Not only had the rebellions and counterattacks of the government army forced villagers to leave behind their belongings but also has the land act of 1964 inscribed state property for allotments that had to this point no formal tenure rights.
The local community of the Jola has dealt and deals with these changes constantly. I will illustrate experiences of re-adaption using the example of rice fields associated with local ‘kings’ around the city of Oussouye. These ‘kings’ coordinate the labour on the fields which is conducted by different villages and along gender lines. The harvest is stored in royal granaries and contributes to food security as people in need can demand for this rice. During the panel I will examine how these institutions around the ‘kings’ have shifted and been adapted as a reaction to changes in society, land tenure systems as well as the rebellions.
4. Understanding Land Grabbing as an Emotion Generator with Implications for Local Food Resilience and Social Capital
Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland
In Senegal, the number of protected areas has increased in recent years. Together with the negative impacts of climate change and the expansion of agro-industrial and mining projects, this change is putting increasing pressure on local communities who rely on natural common-pool resources (forests, fisheries, wildlife, etc.) for their livelihoods. Long-standing food coping strategies are undermined by the above factors and need to be adapted, leading in some cases to a loss of food diversity and changes in social capital as well as power dynamics and cultural landscapes. This ethnographic study in three villages inhabited mainly by Bedik communities in southeastern Senegal draws on participant observation, oral history, in-depth interviews and a simplified social network analysis. First, it explores the evolution of local food coping strategies in a context where the food system and cultural landscape remain highly dependent on natural resources, but where access to these is restricted by the establishment of the UNESCO National Park Niokolo-Koba and leased hunting areas. Although the Bedik Cultural Landscape has been included on the UNESCO World Heritage list and the community is praised as an outstanding example of sustainable management of their environment, no direct alternatives or participation of the Bedik in resource management are shown. This leads to the second focus, which deals with injustice-based emotions, which ultimately shape the local people’s agency against exclusion not only from resources and land, but also information. The paper shows different effects of exclusion processes, such as changes in local institutions, food distribution and social capital, by analyzing the interplay of land grabbing, food coping strategies and emotion-based reactions.
5. From green commons grabbing to new market alternatives? The case of Boundou Community Reserve in Eastern Senegal
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland and University of Basel, Switzerland
The Boundou Community Nature Reserve is located in the eastern region of Senegal. The inhabitants of Boundou have different livelihood strategies and have subsisted both today and in the past by cultivating millet, peanuts, cotton, maize, and as well as herding of cattle and other livestock. These livelihoods are subject to various external influences, such as climate shock and restrictions enforced as a result of the area becoming a protected area (PA) in 2009. As PAs have been established globally to protect biodiversity, communities such as Boundou area that previously relied on these landscapes, have often had to bear the consequences that come with the separation of people from the resources that sustain them both physically and culturally. One significant loss is the loss of pasture use. People have expressed concerns about the availability and quality of fodder or pastures, as they are no longer permitted to graze within this PA, thus affecting their livestock production. Another loss is the ban on hunting, which has always been part of the livelihood strategies in the past as bushmeat hunting was one of the main food coping strategies. Restriction of access to these previous commons (pasture, wildlife) reduces resilience among the people, however, a new alternative of seasonal usage of wild fruit (baobab) for commercial purposes has emerged as everybody in the community has free access to gather and collect this wild fruit within the protected area, which is not often the case in other protected areas. The commodification of these wild fruit brings essential cash income to many households. It is still uncertain whether it is reducing food vulnerability and increasing the resilience of households or whether it does not compensate for the ‘green commons grabbing’
