The Unfixed State of Unfixed Land

Nikita Sud

Development and Change, 2020, vol. 51, issue 5, 1175-1198

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12553

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:devchg:v:51:y:2020:i:5:p:1175-1198

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0012-155X

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Development and Change from International Institute of Social Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().