Browsing by Author "Brouwer, Roland"

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Baldios and Common Property Resource Management in Portugal
(1995) Brouwer, Roland
"The baldios are an ancient tradition in Portugal. The royal rolls by which kings acknowledged privileges during the Middle Ages refer to the baldios. These lands have always been a bone of contention between the rich and the peasants, between shepherds and farmers and between local groups and central authorities (including the forest service). As late as 1875, the baldios comprised more than 4 million ha but, by the advent of the Estado Novo (new state regime) in 1933, usurpation and government-backed individualized privatization had reduced them to some 450 000 ha (or about 5 percent of the land surface of Portugal). These remaining lands are concentrated in the north and the interior of the country."
Changing Name-Tags: A Legal Anthropological Approach to Communal Lands in Portugal
(1999) Brouwer, Roland
"This paper aims to illuminate issues concerning common property rights in land using the 'thick' mode of analysis through a legal anthropological study of communal lands in Portugal. It sees the composition of the bundle of rights constituting any particular property as malleable, and argues that a successful claim to attach to it a particular name-tag (as 'state', 'common', 'private' or other land) may produce a strategic advantage. "The terminology referring to communal areas of land in Portugal differs between popular language, in which they are montes, and administrative discourse, in which they are baldios, meaning uncultivated, waste land. The Civil Code enacted in 1867 consigned such lands to the state, as municipal or parish property. State policy was to convert them into private property until the 1974 revolution led towards the restitution of the commons. "The importance of the different idioms of property law may be seen from a case study of a dispute in 1989-90 between a parish council and two villages within a neighbouring parish. The villages claimed that certain lands were baldios, and their communal lands; the council claimed that they were its parish land. The dispute arose in a sense from historical circumstances which had caused uncertainty about title to this property. But it involved issues as to the different perception of the land as baldios or private property. A â??thickâ?? analysis of the case shows the importance of the label baldios, and the specific circumstances in which a protagonist may succeed by attaching the label."
Common Goods and Private Profits: Traditional and Modern Communal Land Management in Portugal
(1992) Brouwer, Roland
"In the paper, I describe the evolution of communal land management systems in Northern Portugal. I will explain, that in earlier studies of these systems, the image prevailed of harmonious and internally equal communities, although even then there was already evidence of a less idyllic reality. I will proceed with a case study of 'traditional' management arrangements in a parish in northern Portugal. It will appear that the vast communal areas were used principally by the wealthier farmers in the parish. Further, I will discuss the effect of two interventions in the commons which were directed at their dissolution: partitioning and reforestation of parts of the commons. Each intervention is related to a different view on property. The first defends privatization, and the second nationalization of communal land. It will appear that the privatization process was influenced heavily by existing social inequity, and on its turn reinforced the process of social differentiation. Nationalization for reforestation unwillingly served to save communal property, when radical changes in national politics led to the restoration of the nationalized communal lands. The post-revolutionary government designed a new management structure, which will be discussed in the last section of the paper. It will appear that within this modern system it still is difficult to balance public goods with private profits."
Planting Power: The Afforestation of the Commons and State Formation in Portugal
(1995) Brouwer, Roland
"This book discusses the afforestation of the commons in Portugal by the state Forestry Service. It shows that tree planting was part of the subjection of the local population to state law and power."
The Risks of Repeating History: The New Land Law in Mozambique
(2000) Brouwer, Roland
"After almost two decades of socialist experiments and civil war, Mozambique has embarked on the road to peaceful construction and capitalism, although seeds of conflict remain present. As part of the current reform in 1997 a new land law was introduced. Contrary to previous legislation, this law recognizes traditional and community rights to land. The paper argues that the new law rests on a simplified image of community and traditional rights. It also defends that the law, instead of being an innovation, signifies a return to the legal dualism that in the colonial era formed the backbone of indirect rule. Such a return might prove disastrous. Recent Ugandan and South African history suggests that current ethnic conflicts in Africa can be traced back to the failure to dissolve the divide that was produced by colonial indirect rule. For the same reason, the new law may contribute to the rekindling of conflicts in Mozambique."
Setting the Stake: Common and Private Interests in the Redefinition of Resources and their Access in the Machangulo Peninsula, Mozambique
(1998) Brouwer, Roland
"Human history is largely a history of occupation. Different groups invade an area and, by setting their stakes, claim its resources. Bonds all over the globe have become more and more important as to whose stakes are successfully planted and what destination the claimed resource will have. Even the emergence of an African political entity such as the Maputo Kingdom cannot be isolated from global trade in beads, cloth and ivory. For Machangulo, the emergence of such political entities and their subsequent subjection by the colonial state implied integration in and increasing submission to a global order. Yet, at least until today, local definitions as to the nature of resources and the relation between man and these resources prevail. The stakes set by outsiders remained at the margin defined by the colonial system of indirect rule, just as the palisade nets remained outside the Peninsula on the adjacent tidal plains. "On the Peninsula, in a landscape profoundly shaped by community rules as resource use, land remained outside the market, as did most of the area's agricultural produce. Cattle - in particular on the southern half of the Peninsula - and to a lesser extent, cashew and mafurra, constituted the nexus between agricultural production and the market. Market connections were more important in connection to labour. Labour was commodified as the Peninsula's inhabitants increasingly exploited employment opportunities across the border with South Africa. "The arrival of the American entrepreneur Blanchard is likely to transform profoundly that situation. Bypassing local and regional administrative structures, Blanchard obtained a 'development contract' including landtitle over 800 ha and the right to create a nature reserve and sell plots in another 15,200 ha in Machangulo. If his project will be implemented, land and landscape will be commodified. 'Nature' and 'construction licenses' will be sold at the global tourism and estate markets to foreign and national urban elites. The fate of Machangulo, once only on the fringe of political and economic developments, has become tied to a globalisation process around new commodities. "The social impacts of this transformation are difficult to foresee. Locally, benefits in the shape of employment and income might surpass the costs. On the other hand, population resettlement and the arrival of newcomers might increase social tension when their numbers surpass the accomodation capacity of traditional tenure arrangements. At a higher level, Mamdani's lucid analysis of the problems of African states cited earlier indicates that more might be at stake. The lack of local involvement in decision making, the racial dimension of tourism, and the unequal external relations of dependency inherent to the project's setup might well reinforce the incipient divisions along racial and ethnic lines at the expense of democracy and development."