RHN 145/2018 | Call
Organisers: Mats Morell (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University), Jose Vicente Serrao (Departamento de Historia ISCTE, University Institute of Lisbon), Eric Vanhaute (History Department, Ghent University), CORN - Comparative Rural History Network
Rural History 2019, 10-13 September 2019, Paris, France
Deadline for panel proposals: 15 October 2018
Deadline for paper proposals: 15 November 2018
Call for Papers:
Rural History 2019 panel proposal
Negotiating land reform programs 18th–20th centuries: local actors and social responses
The impact of state induced land reforms in the last few centuries on agriculture, land use and peasant societies cannot be overstated. The central aim of land reform programs is the modification or replacement of existing institutional arrangements governing the possession and use of land, and to alter land distribution. These reforms can go different ways, ranging from the transfer of land rights from large (individual or collective) land owners to smallholders, to the transfer of land from individual ownership to government controlled collective farms. It also changes, in different ways, the degree of the control over land use by individual farmers, local rural communities, corporations or governmental bodies. Either way, any revision or reform of regional, national or colonial land laws is an intensely political and social process, changing the relationships within and between rural communities, as well as between communities and the state.
In this session we aim to develop a comparative bottom-up perspective on different endeavors of state initiated land reforms in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The central question is how top-down land reform programs have been implemented on the ground, how local actors responded, how the programs were negotiated and/or resisted.
We welcome paper proposals that discuss cases from different regions and time periods. Proposals of about 250 words should be sent to the conveners together with a short CV. The deadline is November 15, 2018. We will inform you about our decision by December 7th.
Mats Morell, mats.morell@ekhist.uu.se
Jose Vicente Serrao, jose.serrao@iscte-iul.pt
Eric Vanhaute, eric.vanhaute@ugent.be
Conference website: http://ruralhistory2019.ehess.fr
The Rural History 2019 Call for Panels can be found in RHN 70/2018.