11.S941: Planning against Evictions and Displacement
Units: 2-2-8 (H)
Spring 2015
Wednesdays: 5 to 7 pm.
Room: 9-451
Instructor:
Prof. Miloon Kothari (mkothari@mit.edu)
Description:
This 12-unit course will combine state of the art research on evictions and
displacement globally, in the context of the global crisis of evictions and land
grabbing, with the state of the art policy and practice on responses to
displacement. The first half of the course will cover the explanations about the
mechanisms and drivers of displacement including global commodification,
urbanization including land and property speculation, new growth, and relevant
development theories, climate change, violent conflict, and nationalism, and the
search for alternative forms of relations to land beyond commodification,
including through alternative approaches to property such as a rights-based
approach to land and housing, the commons, and informal property rights. The
second half of the course will introduce and evaluate the policy and legal
responses the world, including the UN and civil society campaigns and
movements, has developed to deal with displacement and evictions, at the
national and international levels, and evaluate the use of UN and national
standards as well as tools such as the Eviction Impact Assessment Tool, and
participatory mapping technology, through selected case studies.
The pedagogical purpose of the course is to offer an intellectual framework for
understanding one of the world’s most pressing phenomena, which has a serious
impact on many domains of planning including housing, infrastructure and
industrialization and design, and to prepare students to use tools and methods
for improving their capacity for planning that is more equitable and just.
No prerequisites are needed.
Grading:
Weekly blog on the readings: 50%
Mock planning exercise: 30%
Class participation: 20%
Weekly blog: More than a summary of the readings, the blog invites you to be
analytical, and opinionated, critically engaging with the materials, but going
beyond them to draw on on-going cases and other materials from outside of the
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class syllabus. Each blog must be between 800-1000 words, be titled and
submitted on time through Stellar on ‘Forum’. Each week blog entries are due by
12 noon on Wednesday. The first week is exempted from this.
Mock planning exercise: Details to come soon.
No final paper.
The Lab work component of the course (2 hours per week) is to be spent
reviewing audio-visual materials relating to the course, and preparing tools for
field work in India during the summer. The audio-visual materials will be
recommended as the course develops.
This course is a part of the work of the MIT Displacement Research and Action
Network (DRAN): http://displacement.mit.edu/. The course will draw upon the
ongoing research and field work at DRAN including the mapping displacement
work completed in New Delhi in August 2014.
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Class 1: 02/04/15: Displacement: An Introduction to the phenomenon
Video: Yamuna Gently Weeps (New Delhi, India)
1. Lorenzo Cotula, The international political economy of the global land
rush: A critical appraisal of trends, scale, geography and drivers, The
Journal of Peasant Studies, vol.39, Issue 3-4, (2012), pp.349-380.
2. IDMC, Global Overview 2012: People internally displaced by conflict and
violence (29 April 2013) pp.8-15, available at http://www.internaldisplacement.org/publications/global-overview-2012
3. Anthony Oliver Smith, Development-Forced Displacement and
Resettlement: A Global Human Rights Crisis, in Development and
Dispossession: The Crisis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement
(2009), chapter 1.
4. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, The Violence of Development, Washington Post,
9 August 2001.
5. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component
of the right to an adequate standard of living, Statement to the World
Urban Forum III (19-23 June 2006) in Vancouver
6. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component
of the right to an adequate standard of living, Annual Report (Forced
Evictions) to the UN Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2004/48
Part I: Impacts of Displacement
Class 2: 02/11/15: Socio-economic and health impacts
Video: Dub (documentary on submergence and resettlement from the Sardar
Sarovar Dam, India)
1. Michael Cernea, Understanding and Preventing Impoverishment from
Displacement: Reflections on the State of Knowledge, in Christopher
McDowell, Understanding Impoverishment: The Consequences of
Development-Induced Displacement (1996), pp.13-32.
2. Michael Cernea, “The Risks and Reconstruction Model for Resettling
Displaced Populations,” World Development, vol. 25, no. 10 (1997).
3. Cao,Yue, Sean-Shong Hwang, and Juan Xi. 2012. “Project-Induced
Displacement, Secondary Stressors, and Health.” Social Science and
Medicine 72:1130-38.
4. Goessling, Kristen. P. 2010 . “Mining Induced Displacement and Mental
Health: A Call for Action”, International Journal For The Advancement of
Counseling, 32 ( 3): 153-164. Accessed July 22, 2013
at: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10447-010-9096-y.pdf
5. HLRN, Planned Dispossession Report
6. Miloon Kothari, “The psychological impact of forced evictions on children”,
Paper presented to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,
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7. Kedia, Satish. 2009. Health Consequences of Dam Construction and
Involuntary Resettlement, in Development and Dispossession: The Crisis
of Forced Displacement and Resettlement (2009), pp.97-11
8. Good, Byron J. “Mental Health Consequences of Displacement and
Resettlement,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 31, no. 24 (June 15,
1996), pp. 1504-1508.
9. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component
of the right to an adequate standard of living, Report (Women and
Housing) to the UN Commission on Human Rights,
E/CN.4/2006/118 OHCHR, Women and Housing, 2011
Case Study: Three Gorges
1. Jing, Jun. “Rural Resettlement: Past Lessons for the Three Gorges
Project,” The China Journal, no. 38 (July 1997).
2. Steil, Shawn and Duan Yuefang. “Policies and Practice in Three Gorges
Resettlement: A Field Account,” Forced Migration Review, 12 (January
2002), pp. 10-13.
3. Hwang, Sean-Shong, Yue Cao, and Juan Xi. 2011. “The Short-Term
Social, Economic, and Health Impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam
Project: A Prospective Study.” Social Indicators Research 101:73-92.
4. Xi, Juan and Sean-Shong Hwang. 2011. “Relocation Stress, Coping, and
Sense of Control among Resettlers Resulting from China’s Three Gorges
Dam Project” Social Indicators Research 104: 507-522.
5. Xi, Juan and Sean-Shong Hwang. 2011. “Unmet Expectations and
Symptoms of Depression among the Three Gorges Project
Resettlers.” Social Science Research 40:245-56.
6. Xi, Juan, Sean-Shong Hwang, and Patricia Drentea. 2013. “Experiencing
a Forced Relocation at Different Life Stages: the Effects of China’s ThreeGorges Project-Induced Relocation on Depression” Society and Mental
Health 3: 69-76.
Class 3: 02/18/15: Impacts on culture, environment, food, politics and
human rights more broadly
1. Theodore Downing and Carmen Garcia Downing, Routine and Dissonant
Cultures, in Development and Dispossession: The Crisis of Forced
Displacement and Resettlement (2009), pp.225-254.
2. Smita Narula, The Global Land Rush: Markets, Rights, and the Politics of
Food, 49 STAN. J. INT’L L. 101 (2013).
3. GELBSPAN, PRIOSTE. Thea, Fernando G. V. Land in the struggle for
social justice: social movement strategies to secure human rights.
published by Terra de Direitos, Curitiba, 2013 (four case studies)
4. Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the human rights and
fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people’s, Annual Report (Impact of
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Development Projects on Indigenous People’s) to the UN Commission on
Human Rights, E/CN.4/2003/90
5. Desmond, Matthew, Weihua An, Richelle Winkler, and Thomas Ferriss.
2013. Evicting Children. Social Forces 92, no. 1: 303-327.
6. Margaret Sekageyya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights
defenders, Annual Report (Impact of development projects on human
rights defenders) to the UN General Assembly, A/68/262
Case Study: Baljeet Nagar, Delhi
1. HLRN (2011), The Cruel Side of Delhi's Beautification: Illegal Demolition
in Baljeet Nagar, Report of a Public Hearing (June 2011) available at
http://www.hicsarp.org/documents/Baljeet_Nagar_Delhi_public%20hearing%20report.pd
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Part II: Drivers and mechanisms of displacement
Class 4: 02/25/14: Land speculation, commodification, finance and
development
1. Oakland Institute, Betting on Agriculture: US Private Equity Managers Eye
Agricultural Returns (2012).
2. White B, Borras Jr SM, Hall R, Scoones I and Wolford W (2012), ‘The
New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals’, Journal
of Peasant Studies (editors’ introduction to special issue) 39 (3&4): 619–
647.
3. Saskia Sassen, ‘Land Grabs Today: Feeding the Disassembling of
National Territory’, vol.10, Issue 1, Globalizations (2013).
4. Larry Vale, “The Displacement Decathlon: Olympian Struggles for
Affordable Housing from Atlanta to Rio de Janeiro,” with Annemarie Gray,
Places, April 2013 available at
http://places.designobserver.com/feature/displacement-decathlon-atlantario-olympics/37816/
5. Mishra S, Chaudhry S, Kothari M (2010) The 2010 Commonwealth
Games: Whose Wealth? Whose Commons?, Housing and Land Rights
Network, New Delhi
Case study: Readings on Land Corridors (Plan Pueblo Panama, India’s LookEast Policy)
Guest discussant: Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, Oakland Institute (TBC)
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Class 5: 03/04/15: Violent conflict
1. Mooney, Erin. "The concept of internal displacement and the case for
internally displaced persons as a category of concern." Refugee Survey
Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2005): 9.
2. Robert Muggah, “A Tale of Two Solitudes: Comparing Conflict and
Development-induced Internal Displacement and Involuntary
Resettlement”. International Migration 45, no. 5 (2003): 5.
3. Michael Cernea, “Development-induced and Conflict-induced IDPs:
Bridging the Research Divide”. Forced Migration Review. Special Issue
(December): 25-27 (2006).
4. Schechla, Joseph. “Housing and Land Violations as War Crimes and
Crimes against Humanity”, in Housing and Land Rights Network, The
Summer War on Habitat in Lebanon: Addressing Housing Rights
Violations as War Crimes, Cairo, HLRN, 2006, annex 1-24
Case study: Kampala Convention on Internal Displacement
Guest speaker: Joseph Schechla, Coordinator, Housing and Land Rights
Network, Habitat International Coalition
Class 6: 03/11/15: Climate change, disasters, and ‘green grab’
1. James Fairhead, Melissa Leach & Ian Scoones, ‘Green Grabbing: a new
appropriation of nature?’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 237-261
(2012).
2. Catherine Corson & Kenneth Iain MacDonald, ‘Enclosing the global
commons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing’, The
Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 263-283 (2012).
3. IDMC, ‘Technical Paper: The Risk of Disaster-induced Displacement’
(2013), available at http://www.internaldisplacement.org/idmc/website/resources.nsf/(httpPublications)/A6739FF3
AF535330C1257C36005959BF?OpenDocument
4. Jane McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration and International Law
(2012), chapters 1 and 6.
5. HLRN (2005), Post-Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation: A Violation of
Human Rights: Report of a Fact-finding Mission to Tsunami-affected
Areas of Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka, Fact-Finding Report No. 8
(2005)
Guest speaker: Shivani Chaudhry, Executive Director, Housing and Land Rights
Network, India (TBC)
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Class 7: 03/18/15: Eminent domain, land acquisition, economic
development
1. Liz Alden Wily, ‘Looking back to see forward: the legal niceties of land
theft in land rushes’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:3-4, 751-775
(2012).
2. Usha Ramanathan, ‘A Word on Eminent Domain’ in Lyla Mehta ed.,
Displaced by Development – Confronting Marginalisation and Gender
Injustice (New Delhi: Sage, 2009), p. 133.
3. Sanjoy Chakravorty, The Price of Land (2013), chapter 8.
4. Levien, Michael. 2012. “The Land Question: Special Economic Zones and
the Political Economy of Dispossession in India.” Journal of Peasant
Studies 39 (3-4): 933-969.
Case study: Posco
1. International Human Rights Clinic, ESCR-Net, The Price of Steel: Human
Rights and Forced Evictions in the POSCO-India Project (New York, NYU
School of Law, 2013).
Guest speaker: Prof. Mike Levien, Johns Hopkins (TBC)
NO CLASS ON 25TH MARCH – SPRING BREAK
Part III: Responses to displacement
Class 8: 04/01/15: Setting new law, norms and policy
1. UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (2008, annotated, Walter
Kalin ed.)
2. UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and
Displacement
3. Roberta Cohen, ‘Lessons Learned from the Development of the Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement’ (October 2013), available at
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/10/guiding%
20principles%20cohen/lessons_learned_gps_cohen_oct2013.pdf
4. Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, Beyond the Courtroom: The Impact of Judicial
Activism on Socioeconomic Rights in Latin America, 89 Tex. L. Rev. 1669
2010-2011
5. World Bank, Asian Development Bank: Guidelines
6. IFC, Performance Standards
7. Critiques, IAP
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Class 9: 04/08/15: Changing the politics of enforcement: Strategic
engagement of States and civil society
1. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below (2003), chapter
8.
2. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, “Limits of Law in counter-hegemonic
globalization: The Indian Supreme Court and the Narmada Valley
Struggle” in Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Cesar RodriguezGaravito eds., Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a
Cosmopolitan Legality (2005).
3. Rajni Kothari, Masses, Classes and the State in New Social
Movements in the South: Empowering the People (P.Wignaraja ed.,
1993), pp.59-75.
4. Burstein, Paul. 1996. Social Movements and Public Policy. Pp. 3-21 in
Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly (eds.). How Social
Movements Matter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
5. Beth Stephens, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in
Domestic Politics (2009), chapters 1 and 4.
Case study: Mexico IPT on large dams; report of International People's Tribunal
Pre-Hearing.
Class 10: 04/15/15: Structural and institutional changes: decentralization
and devolution and free, prior informed consent
1. Bardhan, Pranab. Decentralization of Governance and Development.
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 16, Number 4, Fall 2002.
2. International Council on Human Rights, Local Self-Rule:
Decentralization and Human Rights, pages 1-35 (2002
3. Cheema, G. Shabbir and Dennis Rondinelli. From Government
Decentralization to Decentralized Governance. In Decentralizing
Governance Emerging Concepts and Practices. 2007. Cheema, G.
Shabbir and Dennis Rondinelli.
4. George Mathew, “Panchayati Raj Institutions and Human Rights in
India”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jan. 11-17, 2003),
pp. 155-162.
5. FPIC Guidelines, UN-REDD (2013).
Case study: Forest Rights Act, India
1. Pradip Prabhu, Inclusion In Law And Exclusion In Praxis: The Scheduled
Tribes & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition Of Forest Rights)
Act 2006, Socio-Legal Review, vo.6, (2010), pp.120-140
Guest Speaker: Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing,
UN Human Rights Council
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Class 11: 04/22/15: Changing the policy context: Degrowth, and alternative
property regimes
1. Giorgos Kallis, Christian Kerschner, Joan Martinez-Alier, The economics
of degrowth, Ecological Economics 84 (2012) 172–180
2. van Griethuysen P, Why are we growth-addicted? The hard way towards
degrowth in the involutionary western development path, J Clean Prod
(2009), doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.07.006
3. Eduardo Penalver and Sonya Katyal, Property Outlaws: How Squatters,
Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership (2010), chapter 1.
Case Study:
Role of Via Campesina and the development of UN Declaration on Peasant
Rights
1. Annette Aurelie Desmarais, La Via Campesina: Globalization and the
Power of Peasants (2007), chapters 2,3 and 6.
2. Draft International Declaration of Peasants Rights, 2012 (UN).
Class 12: 04/29/15: A negotiation session on resettlement involving a
project: A mock exercise
Source Materials:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Muthurwa final judgment
Yash Ghai Affidavit
Miloon Kothari Affidavit
Muthurwa interim judgment
Petition
Case Study: Muthurwa, Nairobi, Kenya
Class 13: 05/06/15: Use of technology as a countervailing power
Guest speaker: Ethan Zuckerman, Media Lab, MIT
Class 14: 05/13/14: Reflective session with students and audio-visual
material
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