Land in hard places: how militarization, conflict and political transition

Land and natural resources are crucially shaped by their relationship to political authority, but what happens in situations when norms and institutions that shape land access and rights are in flux? In this webinar, we speak to three experts about how rights and access to land is shaped in the context of conflict, political transition and militarization. 

We discuss the complex entanglements between struggles over land and control over territories– how the after-lives of political transitions and conflicts impact upon ongoing processes of agrarian change and more broadly, agrarian justice. 

This webinar features Professor Alia Gana (French National Centre for Scientific Research-CNRS), Dr Eric Hoddy (University of York) and Professor Bengt Karlsson (Stockholm University). The webinar includes presentations by the three invited speakers followed by Q&A and discussion. The event will be co-moderated by IGDC Deputy Director Saba Joshi and CASA Director, Alf Gunvald Nilsen.

Speakers

Alia Gana, is a CNRS Research Professor at the UMR LADYSS- Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research has focused on the transformation of social forms of agricultural production, agricultural policies and development models, including the management of water and land resources, alternative farming practices, and peasant collective action and protest movements in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Her most recent work has explored the links between development, territories and democracy in light of the political upheavals in North Africa and through various thematic lenses: conflicts and collective mobilizations for access to resources and livelihoods; gender dynamics and women's economic integration; territorial governance; voting and electoral behaviour.

Bengt G Karlsson is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. He is works on issues relating indigenous peoples and the society-environment interface, with particular focus on the politics of ethnicity and nature in India. Karlsson is the author of Contested Belonging: An Indigenous People’s Struggle for Forest and Identity in Sub-Himalayan Bengal (Routledge, 2000), Unruly Hills: A Political Ecology of India’s Northeast (Berghahn Book, 2011), Leaving the Land: Indigenous Migration and Affective Labour in India (Cambridge University Press, 2019, co-authored with Dolly Kikon), and the edited volumes Indigeneity in India (Kegan Paul 2006, with Tanka B. Subba), Geographies of Difference: Explorations in Northeast Indian Studies (Routledge, 2017, with M. Vandenhelsken and M. Barkataki-Ruscheweyh) and Seedways: The Circulation, Care and Control of Plants in a Warming World (Vitterhetsakademien, 2021, with Annika Rabo).

Eric Hoddy is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York. Eric’s research interests are focused on climate and development, human rights and social movements, human rights leadership, and transitional and transformative justice. His most recent research focuses on climate adaptation and legal consciousness in urban informal settlements, and transformative justice in transitional and post-conflict settings. He recently co-edited (with José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton and Daire McGill), Justicia transformativa y conflicto agrario. Elementos para un debate necesario (Transformative justice and agrarian conflict: Elements for a necessary debate). Santo Tomás University: Medellín, Colombia, 2022.