The Unfixed State of Unfixed Land

Bibliographic Data

ID4851925
AuthorsNikita Sud (0000-0001-5885-0997, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume51
Issue5
Pages1175-1198
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDevelopment and Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/dech.12553
OpenAlexW2981883691
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited64

Land is unfixed. Qualitative research in India shows humans physically reconfiguring, legally redefining, politically relabelling and discursively re-imagining land in growth- and investment-led policies. The state is a key actor in the material and conceptual unfixing of land, and its re-fixing to emerging developmental imaginations. But land is not just a territorial container for the implementation of policy. Rather, it routinely stretches the boundaries of state authority. In the fieldwork on which this article is based, unfixed, multi-dimensional land emerges as contested access, social and political territory making, possession that goes beyond the legality of property, and more. As unfixed land extends beyond the boundaries and authority of the state, the state too is stretched in projects of land's unfixing and re-fixing. This state is revealed as porous, and with a criss-crossing of social relationships that draw out its institutional bounds into a world of moonlighting officials, revolving doors, and shadowy actors and transactions over unfixed land. The result of this co-productive interaction is the unfixed state of unfixed land

Archaeology · Geography · Investment (military) · Land law · Land tenure · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics) · Principle of legality · Sociology · State (computer science) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure