• Isabel Saffon

  • [re]claiming [un]used land

    Advising
    This project explores strategies of co-governance designed to strengthen collaborative peasant communities in post-conflict Colombia. The peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC-EP (the biggest guerrilla group in the country) was signed in 2016 and was designed to address the socioeconomic disparities that caused the conflict. The agreement was intended to increase administrative power and promote the political participation of disenfranchised peasant communities. Based on the model of community land trusts (CTLs), this thesis proposed a strategy to: Identify national land that can be transferred to peasant groups; Identify peasant groups that are already working on the right to the territories and explore how governmental agencies can include them in decision making; and Develop participatory strategies to facilitate the collective design of collaborative economies. This work is the result of a collaboration with DeJusticia, a Colombia-based NGO that focuses on strengthening the rule of law and promoting human rights. After a year of work, we had developed a methodology with which to determine which plots had been irregularly given to rich landowners and which ones could potentially become CTLs. Additionally, I developed a participatory design kit to guide conversations on how peasant economies can be supported in post-conflict Colombia today.  See more on issuu .
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