Doctoral Dissertation Research: Dispossession and Agrarian Politics

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Does rural modernization inevitably lead to rising average living standards for a minority at the cost of impoverishment of the majority? The research supported by this award investigates the possibility that the answer to this question is "No," that there are alternative scenarios. Historically, rural development has been a mixed blessing. It has increased national incomes and access to modern amenities. But it also has led to dispossession, which is the transfer of control over land and natural resources from small-scale farmers, fishers, and artisans, to governments and commercial interests. For almost three centuries, these forces have transformed self-sufficient rural residents into surplus rural labor who migrated to cities for work, producing increasing numbers of urban poor, or immigrated abroad. But recently social scientists have observed a fundamental shift in this old story. As democracy has spread to new sites, some of the dispossessed have come to see themselves as more than powerless victims whose only options are poverty, insurrection, and migration. Instead, as democratic citizens, they appear to be finding ways to engage and negotiate with the developers. They have obtained concessions, such as increased compensation and enhanced environmental protections, while still allowing projects to go forward. Documenting and understanding these new political processes is important. This knowledge will help policy makers and governments everywhere by pointing to new development pathways that will benefit more with fewer social costs. The research will be conducted in Myanmar, one of those newly democratized contexts, by Columbia University doctoral student, Geoffrey Aung (Soe Lin Aung), advised by Dr. Partha Chatterjee. The researcher will focus on southeastern Myanmar where waves of large-scale land acquisitions have displaced rural producers in order to develop a special economic zone that comprises one of the world's largest infrastructure development projects. He will consider three sets of questions. The first set concerns the actualities of dispossession, how and why shifts in land and resource control are taking place. The second set addresses social and political responses to dispossession by farmers and other rural subjects in the area. The third set attends to the construction of material infrastructures ? roads, a dam, oil and gas pipelines, a refinery, and worker dormitories, which provide the direct impetus for land seizures and displacement. The researcher will collect data through mixed-method ethnographic research, including household surveys, semi-structured interviews, resource mapping, participant observation, and archival analysis. Findings from this research will help to update social theories of how rural transformation unfolds. Findings will also help policy makers and civil society better address the vulnerabilities of rural residents without compromising national development goals.