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Multi-Scale Dimensions of Indigenous Land Tenure in the Amazon

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Abstract

This study demonstrates the importance of scale in understanding the common property institutions of indigenous groups in the Amazon. Using the example of the Pueblo Kichwa de Rukullakta, an ethnic Kichwa group in the Ecuadorian Amazon, we analyze land tenure arrangements at the household, community, and territory levels using a common property framework. The specific bundle of rights identified by the framework is held at the household level but households rely on community and territory level arrangements for their enforcement. Land claims at the community and territory level also serve to define the pool of legitimate rights holders at the next lower level. Due to the importance of scale in understanding indigenous land tenure generally, we suggest an adaptation of the common property framework to explicitly recognize the role of scale. This adapted framework identifies the function, characteristics, and means of enforcement for land claims at each scale of analysis.

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Notes

  1. Kichwa is an alternative spelling of Quichua.

  2. The Digital Library of the Commons is a searchable bibliography of common property research hosted by the University of Indiana and is available at http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/

  3. This is a more recent term. These areas were more commonly known as “comunas” (commons) or “cooperatives” during the 1970s.

  4. Individuals from other cultural backgrounds are also present in small numbers. Many of these individuals moved to the territory after marrying a member of the Rukullakta Cooperative.

  5. It was originally planned to use a random sampling method, but this was difficult to achieve in the first phase due to a history of tension between the community and outsiders.

  6. We came across several cases where individuals from outside married into households in Rukullakta and were subsequently treated as members of the community.

  7. The Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), or Gesellchaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit in German, has since merged with two other agencies to form the Agency for International Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) or GIZ.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Medardo Shiguango, Jorge Shiguango, Oswaldo Shiguango, Utilvino Grefa, Edwin Ortiz, and Carrie Bennett for their extensive assistance in the field. We are grateful to Kenneth Young, Brian King, Mario Cardozo, Jennifer Lipton, and Manuel Peralvo for providing feedback on early stages of this research. We also appreciate Juliet Erazo and four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. Most of all we thank the people of Rukullakta for welcoming us into their communities and making it possible for this research to occur. Financial support for this research was received from the Tinker Summer Field Research Grand, the Robert E. Veselka Endowed Fellowship for Graduate Research Travel at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Buzzard Scholarship of Gamma Theta Upsilon.

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Bennett, D.E., Sierra, R. Multi-Scale Dimensions of Indigenous Land Tenure in the Amazon. Hum Ecol 42, 551–563 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-014-9660-x

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