Who Owns It: Land Claims in Latin America. Their Moral Legitimacy and Implications

Conflicts due to unresolved land claims are a pressing political and social issue throughout Latin America. The aim of this two-day bilingual seminar is to bring together different perspectives on the moral and political legitimacy of land claims in Latin America. We welcome contributions about both indigenous and non-indigenous groups making land claims in Latin America.

We invite submissions in Spanish or English that address the issue of land claims in Latin America both from a theoretical and applied perspective. Suggested topics of papers may include:

- The normative justification of land claims in Latin America

- Land claims in Latin America: What type of claims do the different groups make?

- Land claims in Latin America: Constitutional and legal perspectives

- Land claims in Latin America: What do current economic policies favor?

- The value of land in Latin America: as a means or an end?

- Land in Latin America: Its social and cultural importance for vulnerable populations

- Control and ownership of natural resources by indigenous communities/local groups

- Poverty, development and land tenure in Latin America

- Individual versus collective (or communal) land rights

- Social movements and land claims: Mapping diverse ways of resistance

- ‘Land-grabbing’ by agribusinesses and foreign investors: Tracing new ways of colonization

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words. Please send your submissions in PDF, Word or RTF formats to Alejandra Mancilla, at w[email protected], no later than the 15th March 2013. It is also possible to submit a short paper, which should not exceed 4000 words. The organizers will cover the costs of travel and accommodation in Bogotá for those authors whose abstracts/papers are selected for the seminar.