Jacobo Grajales
| Jacobo Grajales is undertaking his doctoral studies in the Center for International Studies and Research at Sciences Po Paris. His research concerns the paramilitary phenomenon in Colombia; he is implementing a socio-historical approach and incorporating field research completed in several regions of Northern Colombia, as well as archival work. He concentrates on the relation between the state and paramilitary groups, that he studies through the analysis of the place of violence in the control of the population, resources and territories, as well as on political and judicial responses to paramilitarism. |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Speaking law to land grabbing: land contention and legal repertoire in Colombia
Colombia is a particularly interesting case for land grabbing analysts, as it combines political and economic incentives to agribusiness and a development discourse centered on global markets as well as criminal actors (i.e. paramilitary groups, drug gangs...) who are able to use physical violence and bureaucratic linkages in order to seize and accumulate land. Yet, Colombia is also a highly judicialized polity, with a strong tradition of legal contention and cause lawyering. Moreover, a certain number of formal rights run in favor of the dispossessed peasant population; there is a relatively strong recognition of land rights, that has been reinforced by the recently enacted “Victims Law”. Yet, these formal rights suffer from prosaic, underground and violent forms of reaction on the part of the new land owners, often linked to paramilitary militias. This contribution aims to analyze the use of the legal repertoire as a form of resistance against land grabbing and dispossession. It is centered on contentious practices and on the actors of this legal mobilization: NGOs and peasant organizations, as well as Courts and lawyers.
