No abstract

Since the 1990s, the Colombian Pacific region has experienced a process of intensification of the internal armed conflict. Some studies have described this as an unintended consequence of the legal recognition by the state of black inhabitants of the region as ethnic groups with rights to the lands in their territory. This document explores the relationship between this change in the structure of land ownership and the dynamics of the armed conflict in the region (1985-2005), focusing on the Bajo Atrato region in Colombia. At the same time, it asks to what extent those dynamics are related to the planting and exploitation of palm oil. The concept of extractive orders, taken from the literature on the political economy of armed conflicts, will be introduced to explore the relationship between changes in land tenure regimes, palm oil cultivation and armed conflict. The main conclusion of the analysis is that the change in the structure of land property rights does not explain the conflict in the region. Instead, the type of armed actors involved is a relevant variable.

<p>En este artículo hacemos una revisión general de las principales aproximaciones críticas al estado desde dos ciencias sociales con aparentes caminos diferentes: la antropología y la administración pública. Revisamos distintas aproximaciones críticas al rol del estado y a las teorías mismas, y su evolución en el tiempo a partir de una metáfora de vaivén. Los movimientos pendulares caracterizan los avances acumulativos en teorías, aproximaciones y explicaciones que vienen y van en busca de lo estatal, y cuestionan su impacto y su rol en la sociedad. A partir de ese marco presentamos los textos que hacen parte de este número y que contribuyen a la construcción de miradas críticas al estado desde las ciencias sociales en América Latina.</p>

This paper offers an analysis of the links between war, land markets and dispossession based on two case studies: the municipality of Turbo, Antioquia and El Carmen de Bolívar, Bolivar. To this end, firstly, the phenomenon of active paramilitary dispossession is placed in the framework of the general discussion on land grab. Then the general dynamics of the conflict, abandonment and land dispossession in both municipalities is described. Afterwards a broad typology is proposed on land transactions,1 including abandonment and asymmetrical and symmetrical transactions, based on the observed cases. Then the sequences, actors and associated mechanisms are defined for each case. Lastly, we conclude that even though dispossession did not occur in an institutional vacuum, in the cases studied the use of force as a form of appropriation is the result of specific conditions that are closer to the Hobbesian state of nature, where the armed actor can use and make the rules, whereas the transactions that arise from advantages in asymmetries of power and information are closer to market situations in which the appropriating actor uses the rules, but does not make them.

En este artículo analizamos dos modalidades di ferentes de debilitamiento y fluidez de los dere chos de propiedad sobre la tierra de los cam pesi nos: despojo y transacciones entre campesinos, con base en el estudio de los casos de Chivolo y Montes de María en la costa atlán tica colombia na. Para ello, esbozamos las líneas de análisis clave en la literatura relevante, en particular en lo relativo a reformas agrarias inclusivas y re distributivas; mostramos los rasgos generales de la trayectoria de la lucha por la tierra en la región; presentamos las limitaciones a la pro piedad de la tierra dentro del régimen parcela rio, y observamos cómo operaron en los casos analizados. Concluimos que tales limitaciones crean una situación de vulnerabilidad endémi ca de los derechos de los campesinos.