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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available. The online site seeks to organise the combined work of many researchers, practitioners and policy advocates around key themes relevant to the land security, and hence well-being, of smallholders in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The research material on this site is mounted at three levels:
First, a selection of journal articles, reports and other materials is provided and organised thematically to assist researchers, practitioners and policy advocates to draw on one another’s work and hence build up a collective body of knowledge. This is the most “passive” presentation of the research material; our contribution is to find and select the most relevant material and to organise it into key themes. In some cases the entire article is available. In others, for copyright reasons, only an abstract or summary is available and users will need to access documents through the relevant journal or organisation.
Second, a sub-set of the articles has been annotated, with overall commentary on the significance of the article and the research on which it is based, plus commentary relevant to each of the key themes addressed by the article.
Third, the findings and key messages of the annotated articles are synthesised into summaries of each of fourteen key themes. For each key theme, there is a one-page overall summary. Extended summaries are being developed progressively for each theme as part of the Forum's ongoing activity.
Overall, we intend that this online site will contribute toward evidence-based progressive policy reform in the key area of land governance. We further hope that it will thereby contribute toward to the well-being of the rural poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular, who face disadvantage in making a living as a result of insecure land tenure.
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Resources
Displaying 131 - 135 of 564Resistance to Land Grabbing and Displacement in Rural Cambodia
In rural Cambodia indiscriminate, illegitimate and often violent land grabs in the form of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) have triggered myriad local responses by peasants facing evictions from private and communal lands. Drawing on fieldwork in Kratie and Koh Kong provinces, this chapter looks at the various forms of local resistance to government-sanctioned dispossession and displacement and discusses their effectiveness in bringing about socio-political and institutional change.
Study of Upland Customary Communal Tenure in Chin and Shan States: Outline of a Pilot Approach towards Cadastral Registration of Customary Communal Land Tenure in Myanmar
ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The research on customary communal tenure in Chin and Shan States was carried out through two short site visits during 2013-14 by one international and three national researchers in the two states. The Land Core Group with LIFT funding was the sponsor of the study with support from its partners GRET in Chin State and CARE in Shan State. The study concentrated on two pilot villages in Northern Chin State, Haka township and two pilot villages in Northern Shan State, Lashio township. These villages agreed to take part in the study.
Transnationalization of Resistance to Economic Land Concessions in Cambodia
The granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) over large parts of Cambodia has begun to attract global attention. It has also become a key focal point for civil society mobilization in Cambodia as well as for transnational activism directed at targets both within and outside Cambodia.
Access to productive agricultural land by the landless, land poor and smallholder farmers in four Lower Mekong River Basin countries
With a focus on the Lower Mekong countries, this study considers the intersecting issues of land access, livelihoods, management of risk and poverty for men and women smallholder farmers, the land poor and the landless, and how these issues might be addressed in policy and practice. While there has recently been insightful analysis concerning land access, livelihoods, and global land insecurity, we know much less regarding specific mechanisms that keep rural agricultural smallholders and the landless or land poor struggling and it is these issues that we address within this report
Different Regions, Different Reasons? Comparing Chinese land-consuming outward investments in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
Research indicates that key parameters of “land grabbing” differ across regions (e.g., ILC 2012) – particularly in view of who invests and/or when the bulk of investments occurred. At the same time, my review of the “land grab” literature since 2008 reveals that hardly any comparative assessments of “land grabbing” from a home country perspective exist that study whether and/or in which way and why “land grabs” of a single investor country differ across regions.