Ensuring the collective survival of indigenous peoples requires guaranteeing their rights and access to traditional lands. In Colombia, indigenous peoples’ struggle for ancestral land rights has been ongoing for more than four centuries, marked by collective mobilization and pressure before official entities.

ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: The preceding chapters of this book give a central place to the Powers of Exclusion framework for understanding transformations in land relations, as developed in our 2011 book on Southeast Asia. A couple of the main aspects of the two books make for an interesting comparison. The first is that each employs a regional frame of reference to explore themes in changing land relations. The second is their respective development and application of a common conceptual framework.

Up to 2.5 billion people hold and use the world’s community lands, yet the tenure rights of women—who comprise more than half the population of the world’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities—are seldom acknowledged or protected by national laws.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This thematic study presents a country-level overview of customary tenure arrangements in Lao PDR. It examines the extent of customary tenure and land formalization in the country, key policy changes that have impacted on customary arrangements, the degree to which customary land is recognized legally and in practice, and explores opportunities for better recognition. Customary tenure covers a wide range of land types and resources, and provides livelihood security for a majority of the Lao rural population, particularly ethnic minorities and women.

Conflicts persist between forest dwelling communities and advocates of forest conservation. In Thailand, a community forestry bill and national park expansion initiatives leave little space for communities. The article analyzes the case of the predominantly ethnic Black Lahu village of Huai Lu Luang in Chiang Rai province that has resisted the threats posed by a community forestry bill and a proposed national park. The villagers reside on a national forest reserve and have no de jure rights to the land.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Land rights systems in Southeast Asia are in constant flux; they respond to various socioeconomic and political pressures and to changes in statutory and customary law. Over the last decade, Southeast Asia has become one of the hotspots of the global land grab phenomenon, accounting for about 30 percent of transnational land grabs globally. Land grabs by domestic urban elites, the military or government actors are also common in many Southeast Asian countries.

In June 2012, Cambodia’s prime minister issued an order on land titling that deployed student volunteers to survey and map the country’s territory. Examination of this initiative at the theoretical intersections of mapping, mimicry and govemmentality demonstrates the violent exclusions inherent in cadastral projects that restrict measuring and titling to only “productive” properties. In a field of speculation and local power the initiative dramatically refashioned the land to mimic in advance the expectations of the Map.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this thematic study is to provide a comprehensive overview of land tenure systems in Thailand, with a focus upon the recent development of community land titling (CLT) programmes. It is hoped that the clarification and dissemination of such information will act as a useful point of reference for policy-makers and other related stakeholders around the region. As land systems are formalised, community land titling represents a mechanism to enshrine and protect local ownership and use rights.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: During the critical years following the 2012 land reforms undertaken in the midst of Myanmar’s political transition, Gret conducted an in-depth study combining qualitative and quantitative surveys in nine villages of Bogale and Mawlamyinegyun townships (Delta) and nine villages in Monywa and Yinmabin townships (Dry Zone). The full report and the synthesis are the result of more than two years in-depth research and 13 months of eldwork that involved an inter-disciplinary team of 11 international and Myanmar researchers.

This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse land issues in Viet Nam from a number of different angles. The VARHS provides panel data at plot as well as household level and I use this rich data set to present descriptive results on landlessness, land fragmentation, land market activities, and land property rights. I use plot level, fixed effects regressions to investigate the effects of land titles (Land Use Certificates) on household investment.

During Vietnam’s transition from a socialist to a market economy, household’s property rights over agricultural land were considerably strengthened through a land certification program. This resulted in active formal credit and land markets, either of which potentially affects consumption levels and volatility. This article evaluates the program impact with respect to consumption outcomes. In particular, it identifies the channel of impact through which improved property rights affect consumption volatility.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This paper aims to provide keys that will help us understand contemporary land dynamics in these four countries. In order to do so it highlights their similarities and differences, both in the long history that shaped today’s local land situations and in more recent reforms implemented in the context of greater economic openness. The first part of the paper sets the cultural and historical context, with an overview of the diverse ways that the political authorities and different groups within the region have related to land.