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“Our Land is Our Survival”: Decolonial Resistance Through Communal Land in the Caribbean | Line Algoed (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
After two devastating hurricanes struck in 2017, the governments of Puerto Rico and Antigua and Barbuda advocated private land ownership to address post-disaster vulnerabilities. Based on action research, I examine two Caribbean communities who defend their collective land rights, asserting its importance in coping with climate change. In Barbuda, residents are fighting to preserve a centuries-old collective land ownership system that shields them from the rampant coastal development seen in other Caribbean islands. More recently, in Puerto Rico, thousands of residents established a Community Land Trust in the Caño Martín Peña area, a self-built community in San Juan, to combat gentrification and displacement resulting from a large-scale infrastructure project.
Hurricanes do not occur in isolation; they unfold within a backdrop of political and economic turmoil rooted in colonial history (Bonilla, 2020). Thus, a decolonial approach is essential for comprehending climate change-induced natural disasters and their not-so-natural aftermath. I argue that these Caribbean communities challenge the fundamental tenets of post-Enlightenment liberal thought that historically separated humans from nature, a division that ultimately led us into this crisis (Crichlow, n.d.). I contend that the Caribbean is the ideal starting point for unraveling the origins of today's crises. By listening to these communities' worldviews, we can question the enduring colonial notions of land use, which rely on the presumed necessity of private property (Bhandar, 2018). We can start to understand how these notions and the post-disaster responses founded on them exacerbate climate-change-related vulnerabilities, a process we term "vulnerabilization" (Algoed and Hernández Torrales, 2019).
Line Algoed started her PhD research after a career of 15 years at the intersection of urban development, housing, community work, and international development. Her research centers on the importance of collective land tenure, particularly in the Caribbean where she has lived and worked for several years. She is also on the Executive Committee of Community Land Trust (CLT) International, advocating for collective tenure to combat community displacements. She works closely with the Caño Martín Peña CLT in Puerto Rico facilitating South-South exchanges between community leaders fighting against ecocide and displacements. She is part of the action and research group “Stronger Caribbean Together for Land, Food, and Climate Justice” bringing together Caribbean communities from 11 islands and countries. She is a co-editor of the book "On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust”, co-edited with John E. Davis and María E. Hernández-Torrales.