Property rights and economic development : land and natural resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania

Bibliographic Information

Property rights and economic development : land and natural resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania

edited by Toon van Meijl and Franz von Benda-Beckmann

Kegan Paul International, 1999

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Includes bibliographical references

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book provides a critical analysis of the widespread assumption that the formalisation and standardisation of property rights through state legislation has a positive impact on economic development. It is based on anthropological case studies of land and natural resource rights in Southeast Asia and Oceania. These suggest that the economic impact of the formalisation of property rights is not necessarily positive, certainly not for all categories of peoples. They also suggest that state reform of property rights do not necessarily eliminate the conditions of legal pluralism, but rather add new legal structures to an already complex constellation of property rights and duties. The point of departure for the empirical analyses of the central hypothesis examined in this book is that the practical significance of complex forms of property rights and related socio-economic practices cannot be usefully examined within formalistic, one-dimensional and normatively oriented legalistic or economic approaches. Instead, an anthropoligical approach to law is advocated in order to analyse the complicated, multi-dimensional relationships between property rights and economic development, and their embeddedness in social practice. Based on this approach, the contributions to this book show how different people and institutions attribute different meanings to the various components of property relationships, and how they use them as resources in their everyday lives and social struggles.

Table of Contents

Introduction, 1. Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann: 'A Functional Analysis of Property Rights, with Special Reference to Indonesia', 2. Indira Juditka Simbolon: 'Caring for Toba Land and the Environment: What about the People?', 3. Herman Slaats: 'Land Titling and Customary Rights: Comparing Land Registration Projects in Thailand and Indonesia', 4. Willem G. Wolters: 'The Development of Property Rights to Land in the Philippines, 1850-1930', 5. Hartmut Holzknecht: 'Customary Property Rights and Economic Development in Papua New Guinea', 6. Anton Ploeg: 'Land Tenure and the Commercialisation of Agriculture in Papua New Guinea', 7. Leontine E. Visser: 'The Social Exchange of Land, Cloth, and Development in Irian Jaya', 8. Ad Borsboom: 'From Terra Nullius to Mabo: Land Rights and Self-Determination in Aboriginal Australia', 9. Eric Venbrux: 'A Glimpse of the Dreamtime: Property Rights and Tourism in the Tiwi Islands, Northern Australia', 10. Toon van Meijl: 'Settling Maori Land Claims: Legal and Economic Implications of Political and Ideological Contests', About the Contributors

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Details

  • NCID
    BA45660549
  • ISBN
    • 0710306415
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    London ; New York
  • Pages/Volumes
    295 p.
  • Size
    25 cm
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