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Date of Award
5-2013
Access Type
Campus Access
Document type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Sociology
First Advisor
Agustin Laó-Móntes
Second Advisor
Enobong Hannah Branch
Third Advisor
Sonia E. Álvarez
Subject Categories
African Studies | Latin American History | Law
Abstract
Land restitution is acclaimed as a political-economic strategy to mend land dispossession. However, land restitution policies lacking an understanding of the history of land property rights and the conditions of inequality under which it is distributed may produce new forms of uprooting, and reconfigure dimensions of class, gender and racial inequality. This research explores how current loss of territories of Afrocolombian community councils is grounded in a long history of exploitation, racism, (hetero) patriarchy, and deracination. I study the persistent mechanisms that account for the uprooting of Afrocolombian rural populations, and the strategies of resistance people pursue. I use a qualitative methods approach. I analyze archival documents such as letters of freedom, alcabalas , and receipts of manumission, land reform, and manumission laws; conduct interviews, make short term immersions in the disputed territories; and scrutinize testaments, maps, and public policy documents. I investigate the ways in which land has been distributed since 1851, when slavery came to an end in Colombia, and the extent to which restorative justice can occur with the 1448/2011 Colombian victims' reparation, and land restitution law without addressing land distribution inequality.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/m06t-5e76
Recommended Citation
Vergara Figueroa, Aurora, "Race, Gender, Class, And Land Property Rights In Colombia A Historical Ethnography Of The Afrocolombians’ Struggles Over Land, 1851-2011" (2013). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 486.
https://doi.org/10.7275/m06t-5e76
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/486