The Governance of Common Property in the Pacific Region
The Governance of Common Property in the Pacific Region

Author: Peter Larmour

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 9781922144744

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In a region where mining, forestry, fish and other primary resources are so basic to income, employment and national prosperity, an understanding of rights to land, water and minerals is fundamental. Tenure regimes in the Asia-Pacific region are vastly more diverse and complex than in those of any other part of the world for comparable population numbers. These studies will overcome the simplistic misunderstandings that have obscured understanding in so many instances. This book provides an up-to-date overview of the main patterns of indigenous property rights, particularly those held by corporate groups, in the South Pacific Forum region (Australia, New Zealand and the independent Pacific island nations) plus a valuable comparative chapter on Canada. It explores the relative success and failure of a variety of approaches to the management of these complex systems, and offers insights and suggestions for the amelioration of present and likely future stresses in the systems. It is a valuable contribution to the understanding of both governance and property, and to the effective sociopolitical development of the region. - Ron Crocombe, Emeritus Professor, University of the South Pacific

Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific
Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific

Author: R. Gerard Ward

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-10-27

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 052147289X

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Land tenure arrangements are intimately linked with the organization of society, the economy, political structures and geography. In the South Pacific Islands the majority of land is held by community groups under 'customary' or 'traditional' forms of tenure. This book argues that land formerly held in common is now often controlled and used exclusively by individuals or nuclear families - it is being privatized. Detailed case studies demonstrate these trends in Western Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Fiji. Parallels are noted from Asia, Europe and Africa, where comparable forces of commercialization, individualization and socio-political change have brought comparable results. The denial of these trends by policy makers in the region reflects an interest in maintaining the image of traditionalism and its associated status and power. The divergence between rhetoric and reality creates dilemmas for many Pacific Islanders and their leaders.

Land Tenure in Oceania
Land Tenure in Oceania

Author: Henry Peder Lundsgaarde

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2019-09-30

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0824883721

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Discussions of land tenure in social anthropology have usually been deeply embedded in broader empirical and theoretical explanations of social, economic, legal, and political institutions. In this volume the editors have sought to correct the emphasis of previous studies by focusing our attention directly on land tenure in Oceania, without, it must be added, losing sight of the connections between land tenure principles and general social structure. The editors have deliberately looked for similarities by analyzing each tenure system from the same analytical and conceptual perspective. Chapters 1 and 9 specifically discuss the methodological and theoretical framework that evolved in the course of analyzing the seven tenure systems described in chapters 2 through 8. The difficulties and problems encountered by the contributors in presenting their data in comparable form is reflected by the more than three years of analysis, writing, editing, and rewriting necessary to complete this volume. The seven substantive ethnographic chapters illustrate the range and diversity in the land tenure practices which are found within the vast culture area of Oceania. The similarities in basic tenure principles between all seven systems seem all the more remarkable in light of the varied geographical and cultural settings of the seven societies. In all of these societies we find a complete absence of fee simple ownership and a corresponding presence of entailed family estates. The ethnography reveals tenure principles that detail an impressive number and variety of separate categories of property. Each category, in turn, includes an even greater number of rights and duties that symbolize different forms of proprietorship. The differential allocation of these rights and duties among persons and groups represents the exact point of connection between land tenure and social structure. For example, kinship principles that specify the distribution of authority within age, sex, descent, and status categories converge on such tenure principles as land use, land distribution, succession, and inheritance. Principles of political organization concerning the relative scaling of authority and power within the society have clear parallels in the land tenure system, where corporate and individual tenure privileges are differentiated. Economic principles subtly merge with land tenure principles in social domains, where land as a resource and land as a value intersect.

The Pacific Insular Case of American Sāmoa
The Pacific Insular Case of American Sāmoa

Author: Line-Noue Memea Kruse

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 9783319888705

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This book is a researched study of land issues in American Sāmoa that analyzes the impact of U.S. colonialism and empire building in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Carefully tracing changes in land laws up to the present, this volume also draws on a careful examination of legal traditions, administrative decisions, court cases and rising tensions between indigenous customary land tenure practices in American Sāmoa and Western notions of individual private ownership. It also highlights how unusual the status of American Sāmoa is in its relationship with the U.S., namely as the only “unincorporated” and “unorganized” overseas territory, and aims to expand the U.S. empire-building scholarship to include and recognize American Sāmoa into the vernacular of Americanization projects.

Land Tenure in the Pacific
Land Tenure in the Pacific

Author: R. G. Crocombe

Publisher: Melbourne ; New York : Oxford University Press

Published: 1971

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13:

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Includes - Ecology, spacing mechanisms and adaptive behaviour in Aboriginal land tenure, by Joseph B. Birdsell, catalogued separately.

Possessing the Pacific
Possessing the Pacific

Author: Stuart Banner

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0674020529

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During the nineteenth century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago--choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites. Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the nineteenth century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources. "Possessing the Pacific" is an original and broadly conceived study of how colonial struggles over land still shape the relations between whites and indigenous people throughout much of the world.

Land Tenure, Conservation and Development in Southeast Asia
Land Tenure, Conservation and Development in Southeast Asia

Author: Peter Eaton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1134411014

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This book examines the relationship between land tenure, conservation and rural development in the context of the Southeast Asian archipelago. In particular, it is concerned with people living in and around national parks and other protected areas. It discusses the value of reinforcing indigenous tenure and sustainable resource use practices and of including them in policies and projects that attempt to integrate conservation and development.

Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea
Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea

Author: James F. Weiner

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2007-06-01

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1921313277

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The main theme of this volume is a discussion of the ways in which legal mechanisms, such as the Land Groups Incorporation Act (1974) in PNG, and the Native Title Act (1993) in Australia, do not, as they purport, serve merely to identify and register already-existing customary indigenous landowning groups in these countries. Because the legislation is an integral part of the way in which indigenous people are defined and managed in relation to the State, it serves to elicit particular responses in landowner organisation and self-identification on the part of indigenous people. These pieces of legislation actively contour the progressive evolution of landowner social, territorial and political organisation at all levels in these nation states. The contributors to this volume provide in-depth anthropological case studies of social structural and cultural transformations engendered by the confrontation between states, developers and indigenous communities over rights to customarily owned land.

Land and Development in Indonesia
Land and Development in Indonesia

Author: John F. McCarthy

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2016-05-18

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 9814762083

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Indonesia was founded on the ideal of the “Sovereignty of the People”, which suggests the pre-eminence of people’s rights to access, use and control land to support their livelihoods. Yet, many questions remain unresolved. How can the state ensure access to land for agriculture and housing while also supporting land acquisition for investment in industry and infrastructure? What is to be done about indigenous rights? Do registration and titling provide solutions? Is the land reform agenda — legislated but never implemented — still relevant? How should the land questions affecting Indonesia’s disappearing forests be resolved? The contributors to this volume assess progress on these issues through case studies from across the archipelago: from large-scale land acquisitions in Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. What are the prospects for the “people’s sovereignty” in regard to land?