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Title: Ethno-Nationality,
Property Rights in Land and Territorial Sovereignty in Historical Perspective
Organizers:
Stanley Engerman (USA) and Jacob Metzer (Israel)
Address: Stanley
Engerman, Department of Economics, PO Box 270156, Harkness Hall Room 238,
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0156, USA.
Ph: 1 716 2753165.
Fax: 1 716 2562309.
Email: enge@troi.cc.rochester.edu.
Description
of the session: Land, a primary factor of production, has not only
been a major component of economic, political, and social aspects of human
life across time and space, but it has also played an important cultural
and religious role. The different mechanisms that have been utilized
to distribute land among people (by custom, authoritative discretion, sheer
force, laws and regulations, and/or market forces) have been instrumental
in shaping human territoriality, and have been important to the formation
of collective identities and the nature of ethno-national entities.
The close relations
between ethno-nationality and territory in history involve, quite naturally,
the nexus between property rights in land and the exclusiveness of ownership
imposed by the state -the notion of territorial sovereignty. A number
of issues are of interest, among them: the structure and functioning of
land markets in which the participation of "others" (ethno-nationally,
religiously, or otherwise identified) has been effectively restricted (or
barred altogether); the political and economic underpinning of such constraints
and their variety and change over time; and the implications of ethno-nationally
restricted land markets for the allocation of resources, income distribution,
and growth, in the societies concerned.
The history
of colonialism and of many of the ethno-nationally (and/or religiously)
divided "old" and "new" states provides a rich "laboratory" for illuminating
these issues. Prominent cases include: the treatment of Aborigines'
landed property rights and sovereignty in North America, Australia and
New Zealand; the development of European settler societies in Africa, and
the subsequent post-colonial developments in the area; the collective acquisition
of land by Jewish-Zionist institutions and its nationalization in Mandatory
Palestine and Israel; the exclusivity of land ownership granted by law
to native Fijian in colonial and independent Fiji; the legal restrictions
imposed by various European countries on religious minorities preventing
them from owning property or residing in certain areas (for example Lutherans
in XVIIth century Bohemia, Jews in Tsarist Russia, and Catholics in XIXth
century Ireland); the attempts to change the ethno-national mix of land
ownership and settlement in late XIXth century Prussian Poland and in XXth
century Yugoslavia; and the prohibition of land ownership by whites in
independent Haiti.
In the proposed
session we intend to explore these and related issues concerning the formation,
modi operandi, and consequences of ethno-nationally affected land regimes
in history and their relationship to the concept of territorial sovereignty.
It is intended to be a forum for the presentation and critical discussion
of case studies, as well as of comparative investigations, based on a broad
range of experiences. The sessions should provide a platform for the expression
of views concerning current and on-going work, as well as motivate the
exchanges of ideas with regard to new research approaches and agendas.
Participants:
Stanely Engerman (USA) and Jacob Metzer (Israel); Scott M. Eddie (Canada); Jukka Nyyssonen (Finland); Leonard Carlson (USA); Frank D. Lewis (Canada); Ma. Rosa Martinez, Marta Crivos and Laura Teves (Argentina); Tony Smith (Australia); Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar (Israel); Sumner La Croix (USA); V Nithi Nithiyanandam and Rukmani Gounder (New Zealand); Robert Ross (The Netherlands).
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