Explaining Land Titling Divergence: Rural Settlements in the Brazilian Amazon under Temer

• In Event: Mobilizações Sociais e Identidades Étnicas: Uma Nova Cartografia Social

Abstract

Which conditions, relationships and causal mechanisms explain the successful granting of land titles in favor of rural populations with hitherto insecure land tenure? Are there different causal recipes for the official emission of collective vs. individual land titles? Insecure land tenancy, overlapping land claims, and erratic public policy have plagued the Amazon region for decades. Recent and controversial changes in land titling policies under the Temer government have generated both resistance to and an unprecedented upsurge in land title emissions all over Brazil. This paper analyses the empirical and uneven land titling results in western Pará State. Based on ethnographic, interview and archival methods, I compare cases of federal rural settlement projects with different rates of land-title emissions. This comparative methodology allows for the identification of causes for divergent policy outcomes in land-title emissions. Furthermore, I compare cases of recent land titling with others issued prior to 2016, when the Workers Party was in power. Policy-outcome divergence is explained by causal recipes that include intra-bureaucratic, political patronage, civil society alliances and local settlement characteristics. These ongoing, mid-level organizational aspects provide both reasons to expect continuation in policy delivery as well as alternative possibilities for shifts in land-titling patterns.

Author

• Gabriel L Suchodolski, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)