Marginalisation Due to Loss of Cultivable Land and Change in Status of Commons in the Era of Globalisation

Abstract

"Since 1950's the large dam construction activities are continuously taking place, in India. The magnitude of forced population displacement caused by irrigation development programmes was of the order of 10 million people each year, or some 200 million people globally during the last five decades. For those who are displaced, there development projects usually have overwhelming negative consequences, resulting in social and psychological disruption long-term economic impoverishment and marginalisation due to loss of cultivable land. The physical exclusion of commons from a geographic territory with economic and social exclusion out of a set of functioning social network has changed the status of commons to a lower strata. There are conflicting time frames involved in these process. The time frame of the development activities of the project is almost always shorter than the time frame required for economic and social recovery."