ABSTRACT LAND SECURITY IN THE CARIB TERRITORY OF DOMINICA Emma Gaalaas Mullaney Based on a study of the semi-autonomous Carib Territory of Dominica, this thesis proposes that we think of access to the land in terms of land security, a concept that bridges productive, cultural, and political dimensions of the land. Interviews revealed an identification with the land deeper than issues of ownership usually address and at odds with proposals for individual and collective land titling. The consideration of land security is offered as a way to expand our disciplinary language to fit indigenous realities, by connecting the adjudication of property rights directly to the heritage and environmental rights of residents. LAND SECURITY IN THE CARIB TERRITORY OF DOMINICA A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Geography by Emma Gaalaas Mullaney Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2009 Advisor ___________________________ (Dr. Thomas Klak) Reader ___________________________ (Dr. Susan Paulson) Reader ___________________________ (Dr. Bruce D‟Arcus) TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ iv Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2. Analytical Framework .................................................................................... 6 2.1 Reconceptualizing Land Management through “Land Security” ............................. 6 2.2 Literature Review: Political Ecology as a Research Framework ............................. 8 2.22 Antecedents to Political Ecology ..................................................................... 9 2.23 First Emergence ............................................................................................ 14 2.24 Critical Revisions of Political Ecology .......................................................... 19 2.25 Political Ecology and Indigenous Management in Dominica ......................... 21 2.26 Institutions in Political Ecology .................................................................... 25 Chapter 3. Methodology ................................................................................................ 27 3.1 Theoretical Approach .......................................................................................... 27 Chapter 4. The Carib Territory: History and Land Use Practices .................................... 32 4.1 Negotiating the Physical Boundaries .................................................................... 32 4.2 Political Boundaries of the Carib Council Government ........................................ 35 4.3 Land Use Practices .............................................................................................. 38 4.31 Crop Cultivation ........................................................................................... 39 4.32 Local Agrarian Economy .............................................................................. 41 4.4 Common Law and Local Traditions of Land Management ................................... 45 Chapter 5. Challenges to Collaborative Institutional Reform.......................................... 51 Chapter 6. Territory Resident Perspectives .................................................................... 55 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 64 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 66 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of Dominica ( www.maps.com), the Carib Territory added by author … 3 Figure 2. Hamlets of the Carib Territory. Map courtesy of Kalinago Barana Autê……. 5 Figure 3. Ridges and valleys of this mixed-use tropical landscape, summer 2008…….. 39 Figure 4. Carib farmer practices boucan, a traditional technique of targeted burning and clearing that yields a rich fertilizer known as potash. Crops featured include avocado (Persea americana), dasheen (Colocasia esculenta), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), cavendish banana (Musa acuminata), coconut (Cocos nucifera)……………………………………………………………………..... 41 Figure 5. Typical Carib house and surrounding gardens, hamlet of Sinecou…………... 42 Figure 6. Mother and son and their multicrop garden featuring vegetables, herbs, and tree crops. Featured crops include onion (Allium cepa), papaya (Carica papaya L), and tania (Xanthosoma sagittifolium)……………………………………........ 46 Figure 7. Young Carib showcases his seven-acre gardens and describes plans for raising a family on this land…………………………………………………………..... 61 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the Miami University Geography Department and the American Geographical Society for their support of this research. Thanks go as well to my Masters Thesis committee: Thomas Klak, Susan Paulson, and Bruce D‟Arcus. Very special thanks to Queen, and to all those in the Territory who graciously participated in this study. iv Chapter 1. Introduction Thirty years after the Commonwealth of Dominica achieved independence from the United Kingdom, the residents of its semi-autonomous indigenous “Carib Territory” continue to negotiate both the physical and political boundaries of their place in the country.1 The Carib Territory sits on the rugged northeastern shore of this little volcanic island (see Figure 1), where plentiful rains, steep slopes, high-velocity winds from the ocean, and thin topsoil combine to form the base for multi-crop agroforestry systems distributed in small plots throughout the Territory‟s eight hamlets (see Figure 2). Though the Carib Reserve Act of 1978 granted ownership of these 3,700 acres to the Carib people (Carib Reserve Act 1978), this promise remains as yet unfulfilled: the Carib Chief and Council have yet to secure full legal title to the land and continue to contest on behalf of the entire population both terms of governance and their citizenship status with the central Dominican government. The Carib Territory is thus a space and place in legal limbo, with ambiguous recognition of residents‟ claims to the land. It lies under the jurisdiction of two regulatory institutions competing with each other for control, each of them seeking leverage in the enduring dispute over the Territory‟s tenure status. It functions in many ways as a communal entity under the custody of an internally elected Chief and Council; residents of the Territory may not sell or lease any lands therein and may only exchange usufruct rights to land with one another. The Chief and Council also have the power to impose taxes and fines within the Territory, to define residency, and to expel non-Caribs from its boundaries.2 These internal regulations conflict at times with those of the national parliamentary government, which imposes national taxes and trade regulation, subjects by-laws established by the Carib Council to the approval of the 1 The Carib Territory, referred to simply as “The Territory” in common local parlance, is entitled the Carib Reserve in official legal documents. However, use of this term is considered demeaning by the majority of Caribs and thus avoided when possible in this thesis. 2 According to the Carib Reserve Act (1978: 51(2)), a person is deemed to have the right to reside in the Carib Territory if the individual (a) was born within the boundaries of the Territory; (b) has at least one Carib parent; (c) has lawfully resided there for a period of at least twelve years. It is worth noting that the laws of Dominica do not define what characteristics qualify a given individual as Carib. The Reserve Act is likewise ambiguous with regards to the criteria for “lawful residency”: though the document states elsewhere that a person who has resided in the Territory for more than twelve years cannot be required to leave or give up possession of any lands occupied by him or her, the reference above to lawful residency could be interpreted as alluding to land rights based on Carib identity. These are two primary instances in which land rights within the Territory are currently subject to interpretation by individual Chiefs and Councilmembers. 1 national Cabinet, and has held title to the Territory lands ever since the 1978 transition to independence.3 In this contested landscape, the residents and farmers of the Territory practice livelihood strategies that rely heavily on local resources and production. Land has been a driving factor in social justice and indigenous rights movements the world over, each rallying to some form of the cry, “Recognize our claims to these lands!” In Latin America, land conflict has driven some of the world‟s most influential mobilizations, from the Landless Workers‟ Movement in Brazil to the Zapatista movement in Mexico (see Binswanger et al 1995; Feder and Feeny 1991). Land titling programs have been a defining feature of politics in almost every country in the region throughout the past century. Yet the process of formally instituting such claims tends to narrow them down. Access to and authority over land is often brokered solely in terms of ownership. The tendency to reduce land conflicts to a discussion of property rights is evident as well in the case of Dominica, where discussions of how to