The coasts of today's American South feature luxury condominiums,resorts, and gated communities, yet just a century ago, a surprising amountof beachfront property in the Chesapeake, along the Carolina shores, andaround the Gulf of Mexico was owned and populated by African Americans.Blending social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl tells the storyof African American-owned beaches in the twentieth century. By reconstructingAfrican American life along the coast, Kahrl demonstrates just howimportant these properties were for African American communities andleisure, as well as for economic empowerment, especially during the era ofthe Jim Crow South. However, in the wake of the civil rights movement andamid the growing prosperity of the Sunbelt, many African Americans fellvictim to effective campaigns to dispossess black landowners of their propertiesand beaches. Kahrl makes a signal contribution to our understanding of AfricanAmerican landowners and real-estate developers, as well as the developmentof coastal capitalism along the southern seaboard, tying the creation of overdeveloped,unsustainable coastlines to the unmaking of black communitiesand cultures along the shore. The result is a skillful appraisal of the ambiguouslegacy of racial progress in the Sunbelt.

New waves of land grabbing are working to dispossess peasants in both the Global South and the Global North. But peasants are fighting back. They have come together to contest dispossession through place-based and transnational forms of activism. In so doing, they have articulated a demand for food sovereignty. They claim that a democratically organized food system in which smallholder producers produce their own food on their own territory can feed the world whilst cooling the planet. This book explores practices of peasant resistance. Its aim is to show how grass roots peasant activists have been able to demand transnational social and political change. In the process, the book examines the grassroots forms of activism that enable peasants to reclaim land upon which to work and from which to live. It explores how diverse grass roots movements have been able to connect and unite in order to contest transnational dynamics of oppression. Moreover, it discusses how practices of peasant activism transform how we think, and ought to think, about human rights and global democracy. By also highlighting the problems that peasants continue to face, the book indicates that the future of sustainable peasant livelihoods depends on the will of global organizations and transnational society to not just listen to the voices of peasant activists, but to respond to them too.

Property as a human rights concern is manifested through its incorporation in international instruments and as a subject of the law through property-related cases considered by international human rights organs. Yet, for the most part, the relationship between property and human rights has been discussed in rather superficial terms, lacking a clear substantive connection or common language. That said, the currents of globalisation have witnessed a new era of interrelation between these two areas of the law, including the emergence of international intellectual property law and the recognition of indigenous claims, which, in fundamental ways, speak to an engagement with human rights law. This collection starts the conversation between human rights lawyers and property lawyers and explores analytical approaches to the increasing relationship between property and human rights in a global context. The chapters engage with key theoretical and policy debates and range across three main themes: The re-evaluation of the public/private divide in the law; the tensions between the market and social justice in development and the balance between the rights of individuals and those of communities. The chapters adopt a global, comparative perspective and engage in case studies from countries including India, Philippines, Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom and includes various regions of Africa and Europe.

The Swahili coast of Africa is often described as a paragon of transnational culture and racial fluidity. Yet, during a brief period in the 1960s, Zanzibar became deeply divided along racial lines as intellectuals and activists, engaged in bitter debates about their nation s future, ignited a deadly conflict that spread across the island. War of Words, War of Stones explores how violently enforced racial boundaries arose from Zanzibar s entangled history. Jonathon Glassman challenges explanations that assume racial thinking in the colonial world reflected only Western ideas. He shows how Africans crafted competing ways of categorizing race from local tradition and engagement with the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds."

This book makes the unconventional claim that all of the rights in the U.S. Constitution are unified since they are derived from the same sources. Using the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial decision of Kelo v. City of New London to explore one of the most important constitutional questions of our time, this book reaches across disciplines and subfields to bring forth an innovative understanding of rights. The book derives its understanding of rights from historical sources and philosophical texts which then serve as the basis for the empirically backed claim that rights in U.S. have been sacrificed for partisan gain and that the unbiased protection of rights is the only manner in which a free and equitable government and economy can be sustained. Given the theoretical and practical implications of the property rights debate, understanding it is important for everyone in the U.S. and abroad.

Gaining ground? Rights and property in South African land reform examines how land reform policy and practice in post-apartheid South Africa have been produced and contested. Set in the province of Mpumalanga, the title gives an ethnographic account of local initiatives and conflicts, showing how the poorest sectors of the landless have defied the South African state's attempts to privatize land holdings and create a new class of African farmers. They insist that the 'rights-based' rather than the 'market-driven' version of land reform should prevail and that land restitution was intended to benefit all Africans. However, their attempts to gain land access often backfire. Despite state assurances that land reform would benefit all, illegal land selling and 'brokering' are pervasive, representing one of the only feasible routes to land access by the poor. This title shows how human rights lawyers, NGOs and the state, in interaction with local communities, have tried to square these symbolic and economic claims on land. It will be of use to academics in the fields of law, anthropology and development studies.

Across Africa land is being commodified: private ownership is replacing communal and customary tenure; Farms are turned into collateral for rural credit markets. Law reform is at the heart of this revolution. The Politics of Land Reform in Africa casts a critical spotlight on this profound change in African land economy. The book illuminates the key role of legislators, legal consultants and academics in tenure reform. These players exert their influence by translating the economic and regulatory interests of the World Bank, civil society groups and commercial lenders in to questions of law. Drawing on political economy and actor-network theory The Politics of Land Reform in Africa is an indispensable contribution to the study of agrarian change in developing countries.

Capitalism was the engine of modern development in the West. The land tenure system in the Middle East, in contrast to the West, was an obstacle to the development of capitalism. In the West, feudalism resulted in a capitalist mode of production, and was driven by private ownership of land. In Iran, these fundamentals were absent. Understanding this, some Western developmentalists, in an attempt to remove this obstacle, rationalized a project of 'modernization' that involved imposing capitalism from the top down. Under this project, developing countries under the influence of the West were advised to launch land reform programs that would modify the traditional, and obsolete, land systems. The first part of this study explores the roots of this issue in Iran. The second part of the book examines the period from 1961, when the land reform program began, to 1981, when Iran saw the beginning of the Islamic system.

The issue of private property and the rights it confers remain almost undiscussed in critiques of globalization and free market economics. Yet property lies at the heart of an economic system geared to profit maximization. The authors describe the historically specific and self-consciously explicit manner in which it emerged. They trace this history from earliest historical times and show how, in the hands of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in particular, the notion of private property took on its absolutist nature and most extreme form--a form which neoliberal economics is now imposing on humanity worldwide through the pressures of globalization. They argue that avoiding the destruction of people's ways of living and of nature requires reshaping our notions of private property. It also examines the practical ways for social and ecumenical movements to press for alternatives.

The struggle for land has been a key element of the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine thoughout the past hundred years, and remains intense to this day. While international attention focuses on Israeli settlements that have encroached on to hitherto Arab land in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which lie legally outside Israel's boundaries, there is another dimension to the land question, as this book makes clear. Nearly one-fifth of Israel's population is Palestinian. This book examines the extent and means by which Israeli land policy today restricts access to land for these citizens within the 1948 boundaries of the State of Israel. Its authors - one a Palestinian lawyer and Israeli citizen practising in Israel, the other a British international human rights lawyer who worked in Israel for many years - examine the system of land ownership, the acquisition and administration of public land, and the control of land use through planning and housing regulations. What emerges is the extent to which the law is being used to restrict access to land by Israeli Palestinians and the discrimination that this entails for those citizens who are not of Jewish origin. The book argues that domestic and international law, which should operate to protect Palestinian land rights, have failed to do so, and that Israeli land policies breach international legal standards, including human rights norms.

Recent debates surrounding human security have focused on the satisfaction of human needs as the vital goal for global development. Peter Wilkin highlights the limitations of this view and argues that unless we incorporate an account of human autonomy into human security then the concept is flawed. He reveals how human security is a concern with social relations that connect people in local, national and global networks of power, structured through capitalism and hierarchical inter-state systems. Autonomy, as an aspect of human security, depends upon the ability of citizens to gain information about the processes that shape their lives. In this respect autonomy and communication are inherently linked and are prerequisites for the establishment of meaningful democratic systems. To what extent do developments in global communication enhance or undermine autonomy? As the world's media companies continue to merge, we are moving towards an ever more commercially driven system of global information. Wilkin argues that private ownership provides an increasingly powerful obstacle to human autonomy, and that the neo-liberal institutional and policy framework - now a global tendency - raises major problems for the attainment of human security. At the same time it has provided the ideological justification for the extension of private power into ever wider areas of public life. Changes in global communication reflect wider tendencies to enhance the power of global elites at the expense of working people and the author illustrates how and why these changes have taken place and the forms of opposition that have arisen in response to them.

The late nineteenth century was a period of tremendous upheaval in American race relations. But while studies abound documenting the changes in relations between whites and African Americans in the northern and southern states during this time, few historians have tackled this topic in the lands of the frontier West or sought to understand how Native Americans figured into the nation's complex racial mix. In Contested Territory, Murray R. Wickett offers the first complete history of the interaction between whites, Native Americans, and African Americans in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories from the end of the Civil War until Oklahoma statehood in 1907, addressing questions about the nature of American race relations, the answers to which far transcend the territorial boundaries of the region.

By the late 1800s, the Indian and Oklahoma Territories were the only place where the three "founding" cultures of American society coexisted in significant numbers, and the area provides an excellent case study in the contrasting racial policies aimed at separate ethnic groups. Against a backdrop of erratic treatment by Indian tribes and the ongoing trauma of war and Reconstruction, freedmen sought a true promised land in Oklahoma. Many blacks pressed westward, but their exodus was met with resistance from white settlers and mixed-blood Native Americans who tried to enact laws to curtail the civil rights of blacks. As Wickett shows, racial separation versus integration sparked a bitter debate that factionalized both blacks and Indians. While white government officials and humanitarian reformers sought -- and often forced -- the assimilation of Native peoples into Anglo-American society, theystrove, at the same time, to secure the strict segregation of African Americans. As African Americans desperately fought a losing battle to maintain their civil rights, Native Americans, for the most part, rejected the benefits white society encouraged them to accept.

Wickett tells his fascinating and complex story with a mix of sources that includes poems, anecdotes, and particularly well-chosen pictures. Through government records, newspapers, diaries, and oral history interviews, he also allows those who experienced the temper of the times first hand to speak for themselves.

Ironically, whites in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories discouraged in African Americans the very ideals and values they so ardently attempted to instill in Native Americans. As Wickett's groundbreaking study reveals, the battles over what role each of the three racial groups would play in the region truly made it a "contested territory".

The restoration of land rights is one of the key factors in the transformation process of South Africa. The complexities of restoration of land rights are many times underestimated and the competing interests involved may lead to the process becoming outdrawn and emotional. In few areas is the potential for conflict of interest so apparent than when land claims are introduced on national parks and other conservation areas held dear by the nation. While national parks and other conservation reserves fulfil a crucial role in the local and regional economic development of South Africa, it is also of crucial importance that historical wrongs, which may have led to the establishment of such parks, are rectified. Numerous parks and conservation areas or parts thereof, were after all, established on land that was obtained through discriminatory means from black people. When the Makuleke claim against the northern part of the Kruger National Park was introduced, the scene was set for a lengthy and emotional encounter. The claim was referred to as a "test" to reconcile competing interests. The joint management model, which has been agreed upon by the South African National Parks (SANP) and the Makuleke community to settle the claim, is an example of how closer co-operation can be structured to facilitate co-operation and economic empowerment of neighbouring communities while at the same time protecting the conservation assets of South Africa. This settlement may prove to be a guiding light for similar disputes in other areas of South and southern Africa.

Nearly fifty years ago, the Bureau of Reclamation proposed building a dam at the confluence of two rivers in Central Arizona. While the dam would bring valuable water to this arid plain, it would also destroy a wildlife habitat, flood archaeological sites, and force the Yavapai Indians off their ancestral home. "The Struggle for Water" is not only the fascinating story of this controversial and ultimately thwarted public works project but also a study of rationality as a cultural, organizational, and political construct.
In the 1970s, the three groups most intimately involved in the Orme Dam--younger Bureau of Reclamation employees committed to "rational choice" decision making, older Bureau engineers committed to the dam, and the Yavapai community--all found themselves and their values transformed by their struggles. Wendy Nelson Espeland lays bare the relations between interests and identities that emerged during the conflict, creating a contemporary tale of power and colonization, bureaucracies and democratic practice, that asks the crucial question of what it means to be "rational."

After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on the way to being closed.
In this original study, Kantor uses economic analysis to show that, contrary to traditional historical interpretation, this conflict was centered on anticipated benefits from fencing livestock rather than on class, cultural, or ideological differences. Kantor proves that the stock law brought economic benefits; at the same time, he analyzes why the law's adoption was hindered in many areas where it would have increased wealth. This argument illuminates the dynamics of real-world institutional change, where transactions are often costly and where some inefficient institutions persist while others give way to economic growth.

After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on the way to being closed.
In this original study, Kantor uses economic analysis to show that, contrary to traditional historical interpretation, this conflict was centered on anticipated benefits from fencing livestock rather than on class, cultural, or ideological differences. Kantor proves that the stock law brought economic benefits; at the same time, he analyzes why the law's adoption was hindered in many areas where it would have increased wealth. This argument illuminates the dynamics of real-world institutional change, where transactions are often costly and where some inefficient institutions persist while others give way to economic growth.

Debates concerning the federal role in regulating industry and in managing the nation's public lands are becoming increasingly contentious. This is in part due to the rise of well-organized and ideologically energized land rights movements that have vowed to resist expansion of environmental regulations and even to roll back existing environmental statutes. A Wolf in the Garden is the only book available that assembles the arguments of key thinkers in the land rights and the environmental movements. The broad range of essays in this collection unveils hidden dimensions of the debate and explores opportunities for the environmental movement to revitalize itself by taking advantage of recent changes in the political landscape.

Sponsored jointly by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis "It's much too late but this is the book we should have had in Paris during the five years effort to get a political settlement of the Vietnam War. . . . Thought provoking." --Indochina Chronology "An important contribution to a better understanding of international relations . . . with reflective discussions as well as thorough case studies." --Indian Express Culture--along with many other variables--often impacts international negotiations. Culture and Negotiation offers a unique contribution by focusing on the distinctive impact of culture, both in creating unexpected opportunities for dispute settlement and in imposing obstacles to agreement. Separated into three sections, part I presents expert views on the nature and limits of culture's influence on negotiation. Part II comprises the core of the book, and contains a wealth of case studies and analyses of international disputes regarding water resources. Each case asks the following key questions: What are the different cultural components that made a difference in the outcome? How did culture play a role in the negotiation process? What are some specific illustrations of culture's contributing role, both to the dispute and to the ways in which it was handled? Part III includes implications for practitioners and policymakers, along with new directions for future studies. Culture and Negotiation is an essential resource for international relations practitioners in both the private and public sectors, as well as scholars and researchers interested in either culture or the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution.

Exacerbated by the Gulf War, the plight of the Kurds is one of the most urgent problems facing the international community. This authoritative study of the Kurdish people provides a deep and varied insight into one of the largest primarily tribal communities in the world. It covers the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the great Kurdish revolt against republican Turkey, the birth of Kurdish nationalism and the situation of the Kurdish people in Iraq, Turkey and Iran today. Van Bruinessen's work is already recognized as a key contribution to this subject. Tribe by tribe, he accounts for the evolution of power within Kurdish religious and other lineages, and shows how relations with the state have played a key constitutive role in the development of tribal structures. This is illustrated from contemporary Kurdish life, highlighting the complex interplay between traditional clan loyalties and their modern national equivalents. This book is essential to any Middle East collection. It has serious implications for the study of tribal life elsewhere, and it documents the history of what has until recently been a forgotten people.

Carried out by the government of the shah between 1962 and 1971, the Iranian land reform was one of the most ambitious such undertakings in modern Middle Eastern history. Yet, beneath apparent statistical success, the actual accomplishments of the program, in terms of positive benefits for the peasantry, were negligible. Later, the resulting widespread discontent of thousands of Iranian villagers would contribute to the shah's downfall. In the first major study of the effects of this widely publicized program, Eric Hooglund's analysis demonstrates that the primary motives behind the land reform were political. Attempting to supplant the near-absolute authority of the landlord class over the countryside, the central government hoped to extend its own authority throughout rural Iran. While the Pahlavi government accomplished this goal, its failure to implement effective structural reform proved to be a long-term liability. Hooglund, who conducted field research in rural Iran throughout the 1970s and who witnessed the unfolding of the revolution from a small village, provides a careful description of the development of the land reform and of its effects on the main groups involved: landlords, peasants, local officials, merchants, and brokers. He shows how the continuing poverty in the countryside forced the migration of thousands of peasants to the cities, resulting in serious shortages of agricultural workers and an oversupply of unskilled urban labor. When the shah's government was faced with mass opposition in the cities in 1978, not only did a disillusioned rural population fail to support the regime, but thousands of villagers participated in the protests that hastened the collapse of the monarchy.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER! "Secrets of the Sprakkar is a fascinating window into what a more gender-equal world could look like, and why it's worth striving for. Iceland is doing a lot to level the playing field: paid parental leave, affordable childcare, and broad support for gender equality as a core value. Reid takes us on an exploration not only around this fascinating island, but also through the triumphs and stumbles of a country as it journeys towards gender equality." -Hillary Rodham Clinton Iceland is the best place on earth to be a woman-but why? For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that makes many women's experience there so positive? Why has their society made such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world's first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? And how can we learn from what Icelanders have already discovered about women's powerful place in society and how increased fairness benefits everyone? Eliza Reid, the First Lady of Iceland, examines her adopted homeland's attitude toward women-the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Reid's own experience as an immigrant from small-town Canada who never expected to become a first lady is expertly interwoven with interviews with dozens of sprakkar ("extraordinary women") to form the backbone of an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman, and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as "equal" than we may understand. Secrets of the Sprakkar is a powerful and atmospheric portrait of a tiny country that could lead the way forward for us all.

Life in rural Britain has changed beyond recognition since the beginning of the twentieth century. Through dramatic events, such as the ban on hunting and the outbreak of mad cow disease, and through the growth of the organic movement, changes in farming practices and increasing rural poverty have all had an effect on how we view the countryside and the people who live there. Through an examination of the historical background to some of the main controversies, the authors explore the key elements of rural life, including the varying responses to animal disease during Biblical times to the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, the relationship between farming methods and landscape preservation, as well as organic farming, the role of the European Union and the truth about the Countryside Alliance. Throughout, they address the thorny question of whether the countryside can still support a rural population. This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary and historical rural life in Britain.

Land reform is once again under the spotlight. Amidst calls by some politicians for confiscating land from white farmers without compensation, others claim that the land redistributed to black owners is not being productively farmed. The debate is dangerously polarised, the stakes high. At the same time new challenges confront policy-makers: climate change, threats to bio-diversity, urbanisation, high unemployment, food security, and global economic uncertainties.

2013 was the centenary of South Africa's notorious Natives Land Act, whose effects are still evident in the country's divided countryside and deeply racialised inequalities. 2014 is the deadline that the ANC government set for itself of redistributing 30 per cent of commercial agricultural land into black ownership. All agree that the target cannot be met, but there is little agreement on what is the best way forward. 2014 is also the twentieth anniversary of the founding of democracy.

Building on the public debates generated by the centenary of the 1913 Land Act, this book presents a major opportunity to review the contemporary significance of land as a social, economic and natural resource in South Africa - to pose new questions and search for new answers.

This vivid behind-the-scenes account of Israeli rule in Jerusalem details for the first time the Jewish state's attempt to lay claim to all of Jerusalem, even when that meant implementing harsh policies toward the city's Arab population.

The authors, Jerusalemites from the spheres of politics, journalism, and the military, have themselves been players in the drama that has unfolded in east Jerusalem in recent years and appears now to be at a climax. They have also had access to a wide range of official documents that reveal the making and implementation of Israeli policy toward Jerusalem. Their book discloses the details of Israel's discriminatory policies toward Jerusalem Arabs and shows how Israeli leaders mishandled everything from security and housing to schools and sanitation services, to the detriment of not only the Palestinian residents but also Israel's own agenda. "Separate and Unequal" is a history of lost opportunities to unite the peoples of Jerusalem.

A central focus of the book is Teddy Kollek, the city's outspoken mayor for nearly three decades, whose failures have gone largely unreported until now. But Kollek is only one character in a cast that includes prime ministers, generals, terrorists, European and American leaders, Arab shopkeepers, Israeli policemen, and Palestinian schoolchildren. The story the authors tell is as dramatic and poignant as the mosaic of religious and ethnic groups that call Jerusalem home. And coming at a time of renewed crisis, it offers a startling perspective on past mistakes that can point the way toward more equitable treatment of all Jerusalemites.

Longtime fly fisherman Quinn Grover had contemplated the "why" of his fishing identity before more recently becoming focused on the "how" of it. He realized he was a dedicated fly fisherman in large part because public lands and public waterways in the West made it possible. In Wilderness of Hope Grover recounts his fly-fishing experiences with a strong evocation of place, connecting those experiences to the ongoing national debate over public lands. Because so much of America's public lands are in the Intermountain West, this is where arguments about the use and limits of those lands rage the loudest. And those loudest in the debate often become caricatures: rural ranchers who hate the government; West Coast elites who don't know the West outside Vail, Colorado; and energy and mining companies who extract from once-protected areas. These caricatures obscure the complexity of those who use public lands and what those lands mean to a wider population. Although for Grover fishing is often an "escape" back to wildness, it is also a way to find a home in nature and recalibrate his interactions with other parts of his life as a father, son, husband, and citizen. Grover sees fly fishing on public waterways as a vehicle for interacting with nature that allows humans to inhabit nature rather than destroy or "preserve" it by keeping it entirely separate from human contact. These essays reflect on personal fishing experiences with a strong evocation of place and an attempt to understand humans' relationship with water and public land in the American West.