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The Legal Contention for Baldíos Land in the Colombian Altillanura

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2023

Carolina Hurtado-Hurtado Open the ORCID record for Carolina Hurtado-Hurtado [Opens in a new window] ,
Dionisio Ortiz-Miranda Open the ORCID record for Dionisio Ortiz-Miranda [Opens in a new window]  and
Eladio Arnalte-Alegre
Carolina Hurtado-Hurtado
Affiliation:
Carolina Hurtado-Hurtado is Researcher in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain. churtado@upv.es.
Dionisio Ortiz-Miranda
Affiliation:
Dionisio Ortiz-Miranda is Professor in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain. dortiz@esp.upv.es.
Eladio Arnalte-Alegre
Affiliation:
Eladio Arnalte-Alegre is professor in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain. evarnalt@upv.es.
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Abstract

This article describes the process of legal contention between civil society, political parties, and state institutions for the baldíos lands in the Colombian Altillanura region in the last two decades, a region considered the country’s “last agricultural frontier.” The article focuses on the dual and sometimes contradictory roles of the state institutions, both as facilitators of baldíos grabbing and as guarantors of the peasants’ legal land rights. It analyzes the different attempts by the Colombian government to remove the legal limitations to land accumulation and the resistance put up by civil society and the political parties, which resorted to the existing legal mechanisms to deactivate those attempts. The results reveal the two-sided role of the state: while the government introduces legal changes to facilitate baldíos grabbing, state bodies are actively denouncing and sanctioning illegalities or ruling in favor of peasants deprived of their lands.

Keywords

Large-scale land acquisitionlegal contentionbaldíos landColombia
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , May 2023 , pp. 55 - 82
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Miami

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Footnotes

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare none.

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