The Enclosure of the Ejidos of Bogotá Imperial Wars and the End of Common Lands in Colonial New Granada

The article analyses the enclosure of the ejidos of the city of Bogotá in the second half of the 18th century, one century before the liberal government definitively abolished common property in Colombia. It shows how, as the land demand increased with population and economic growth, not only landowners but also the Crown sought to increase their income at the expense of common lands. Unlike the classic enclosures in England, the Cabildo kept control over the ejidos of Bogotá. By furthering the private use of municipal ejidos without expropriating Cabildos, the Crown sought to activate the agrarian economy safeguarding, at the same time, the local financial structure that sustained the empire. Emphasizing the fiscal nature of municipal ejidos, this article shows how imperial dynamics transformed land use on both sides of the Atlantic and explores the specificities of common-land enclosures in some of the Spanish colonies.

Examining the Gender Dynamics of Green Grabbing and Ejido Privatization in Zacatecas, Mexico

The ejido is the most important form of collectively owned property in Mexico; approximately half of the country's territory belongs to ejidatarios of whom women make up roughly 20%. Recent legal reforms aimed at privatizing the ejido are forcing ejidatarios/as to sell or rent their lands to corporations seeking to invest in oil, mining, and energy production. This paper examines the gender impacts of land privatization for renewable energy generation in two ejidos of Zacatecas, Mexico: El Orito and Benito Juárez. The first agreed to rent their lands to a private company while the other did not. Results show that land rentals benefitted a handful of ejidatarios, while the people affected the most include male stone miners, ejidatarias who were excluded from decision-making, and women who obtain food and fuel from ejido common lands. Benito Juárez served as a good point of comparison because its common lands were not privatized, and people continue to use them in traditional ways. However, people in Benito Juárez also hold different bundles of rights to common lands based on gender, economic status and age. The paper calls for a gender and intersectional approach to continue examining the differentiated impacts of ejido privatization in Mexico.

Conflicts over common rights to cattle grazing on common lands and manorial properties in Austrian Galicia (1772–1918)

The research presented in this article concerns common rights to cattle grazing on common lands and manorial properties in nineteenth-century Austrian Galicia. The findings – obtained by analysing sources from archives and libraries in what is now Ukraine – shed light on the right of peasants and townspeople to graze cattle, along with the circumstances and sources of mass social antagonisms. The rich archival resources permitted a representative group of sources concerning each type of existing conflict to be chosen. The key research problems addressed in this article are the sources for a variety of disputes and their impact on relations between the main social groups and people’s standard of living, the processes of pauperisation and modernisation, and the consequences of abolishing these common rights.

Gender Differences in Knowledge, Use, and Collection of Wild Edible Plants in Three Spanish Areas

Many ethnobotanical studies have shown differences in the knowledge and practices held by men and women. Using ethnographic fieldwork, a survey, and secondary data from three different areas in Spain, this study shows a geographical pattern in women’s and men’s relations with wild edible plants. In the case studies from Southern Spain, Doñana, and Sierra Morena Extremeña, women gather less wild edible plants than men, while in the Central Spain case study, Sierra Norte de Madrid, the difference is less marked. We explain this difference through the construction and distribution of agrarian spaces, particularly with regards to land tenure type and urban centers size. In the southern cases, large agrarian properties are more prevalent than in Sierra Norte de Madrid, where common lands and small and medium properties predominate. Additionally, in Doñana, big urban agro-towns dominate, whereas in Sierra Norte de Madrid and Sierra Morena Extremeña little towns are the norm. Overall, our study suggests that gendered differences in the use of natural resources are better understood if contextualized in a large socioecological context.

Common lands within the meaning of the common lands act of 29 june 1963 – selected civil law issues

The article will discuss the general issues related to common land - the term applied in the Common Lands Act of 29 June 1963 and its legal nature. In addition, an attempt will be made to answer the question about an entity that should be disclosed in the second section of the land and mortgage register in the case of real property being a part of the common land. Currently, land and mortgage registers may be established for common land. The question is whether it should be the common land itself or natural and legal persons entitled to hold shares therein, or maybe a company established to manage and develop such a common land. It seems that the legislator itself has been unable to deal with this issue. There are no legal acts where it would indicate directly or indirectly an entity that should be disclosed in the second section of the land and mortgage register as an owner (co-owner).

Capitalism and inequality

According to the prevailing opinion, capitalism is a market economy governed by immutable laws and inequality is the result of competition between free and equal individuals on that market. This paper argues that capitalism, as developed in Western Europe in modern times, has more in common with organized crime than with a system of natural laws. It is rooted in the sale of church and common lands, the privatization of finance (especially public debt) and colonialism. However, its purpose is not the accumulation of wealth. It is merely a particular way of sustaining domination by a small group of people over the rest of the population. Domination in capitalism differs from earlier forms of domination in two ways: it is reproduced via the accumulation of wealth and it is not visible as such. Neither the purpose (domination) nor the functioning (systematic appropriation) is visible on the surface. Even Marx was led to believe that the economy is governed by laws which can be studied scientifically. The paper will argue against this belief by tracing the structures of domination to the reproduction of social inequality in capitalist societies.

COMUNIX WhatsAppers: The Community School in Portugal and Spain

This symposium article investigates the COMUNIX—Active Participation of Young People in the Governance of Common Lands—community school. To do so, I analyze how the community school implemented pedagogical activities based on informal learning, which aims to stimulate young people to exchange communal and practical experiences. On the one hand, this article investigates, while thinking through bottom-up educational pedagogies, how underrepresented youth were challenged to absorb knowledge about common lands. On the other, using the lens of digital sociology it explores how COMUNIX WhatsAppers appropriated digital media to activate their participation through deliberation channels. The article is based on a digital ethnography of group interactions and conversations on WhatsApp chat and Facebook page, complemented by participant observation. It shows how digital media has come to constitute a key platform for deliberation during the community school.

Viewpoint: Defeating the water crisis: Community matters!

Community participation is critical in enhancing rural sustainability in terms of managing indigenous water harvesting structures. The long-standing illusion that the water crisis can only be tackled through a top down strategy design has been shattered by a successful community engagement model using the social, financial, and human capital of the community in the semi-arid village Laporiya of Rajasthan in India. The positive externalities created through the process of community engagement are not only via knowledge sharing but also water sharing with neighboring villages. The appropriate policy suggestion for the positive externalities so created is to build an extra market for ‘ideas’ creating incentives for these innovative practices in rural settings by allowing them to flourish in a hazard free manner, free from the risk of encroachment of common lands, or of future inter-sectoral resource conflict arising out of any industrial activity. The state-managed community participation has also been successful in reviving and creating water harvesting structures, but the sustainability of such program is at stake, in the absence of social capital. Communities do matter but in ways that sustain the local economy.