Inquiry Into the Movement for Land Justice: II

You immediately would have noticed that this post, intended to be the second in a series we started some time ago, has changed its title slightly. We began this series with the intention of getting to the heart of what a social movement is, understanding its genesis and existence in the world. With many intersecting issues, a comprehensive analysis addressing the root of social issues can widen the understanding of our shared predicament. As a point of entry for this analysis, we are specifically focusing now on the movement which we previously identified as the land justice movement.

Kate in her recent blog gave a brief insight into recent developments occurring in land justice activism within the UK (by no means exhaustive), spanning over the last half-decade or so. In our first post of the series, we took a wide look at social movements in general, to give ourselves an orientation of the topic we are dealing with. Moving forward we will be taking a more stretched historical look into the development of this movement. The struggle for land is historic, meaning successive societies have adopted dynamically different ways of using and managing land, bringing forth respective forms of struggle. It’s important to note that the struggle for land historically has manifested itself in a multitude of ways, resulting in different motivations for social change and reorganisation.

So how does a movement articulate change? The first thing to be done is for it to situate itself within the context that it exists in. The movement can’t seek to explain the society it wishes to change from the outside. While developing its theory of change, it must also be able to account for its own development being the result of the same conditions it desires to change. This is one of the aims of this series. We are hoping to provide a basis from which everyone can critically understand the place of land within our social, economic and political landscapes. This inquiry poses the following questions:

What social relations constitute our present conditions?

Can an analysis of these conditions provide us with a shared understanding on how to approach the various issues we face today?

This series, and the development of a new narrative for land are just a few of the offerings we at Shared Assets have produced as contributions to the identified issue. We are amongst many others, in their own way working towards building an understanding of land and why it’s so central to our lives. This is greatly overlooked by society in general, and it’s no surprise to see why. The expulsion of the peasantry from the countryside into towns over centuries and particularly during the industrial revolution, especially in London, created an industrial working class population that was far removed from its former landscapes of meadows, woodland and grass. The commons, as we know it, in its rural, idyllic fashion, met an unfortunate historical end in the wake of industrialisation. This process and all its parallel developments will be looked at again in more depth further into the series.

And so, what does the present have to say about the aforementioned process? Thanks to the work of Guy Shrubsole and Anna Powell-Smith we now have clear hard data on the resulting consequence of that expulsion. It becomes clear to see then that we suffer from ‘disconnection’ to the land by no fault of our own, and indeed this importantly extends to Black, PoC, and Traveller communities who are levelling against the stereotypes and hostility that limit the experience of nature connection. Combine some of these realities and you see that disconnection to land is by no means a natural process, it is the expansion of a number of social processes which we must get to the heart of.

This situation is identified as the barrier to overcoming the political, social, and economic issues we face today. The movement we are looking at is tirelessly addressing these issues head on but before we proceed further in trying to understand this movement let’s establish a clear basis. Firstly, we must understand what exactly is meant by ‘Land Justice’, at least from the perspective of the movement itself, before taking a more general view. In the Land Justice UK website, we see the following

• We recognise that present land use and ownership are the result of policies and decisions that have little basis in social justice or in considerations of the common good.
• We work together to raise awareness of land as a common issue underpinning many struggles and injustices, and to turn this awareness into action that will challenge and change the status quo.

The two identified issues pertain directly to the dynamics of land ‘use’ and ‘ownership’. ‘Use’ in this case refers to the human activity occurring on the land for recreational and productive purposes. In this case, it’s important to ask ourselves what exactly is meant by ‘land’ when we speak of its use. Plainly, land refers simply to the surface of the earth’s crust which is not covered by water. Clearly, this alone isn’t necessarily useful for our understanding, but combined with the term ‘ownership’ there’s a hidden picture that emerges. We mentioned that Guy’s work uncovered the data showing ownership of land in the UK which traces a long history to the enclosures. Therefore, a history of this development of ‘enclosure’ alongside the historical development of ‘human activity’ (on land) is where our investigation lies.

The issues we face are numerous, but indeed they are intersectional, and although owing themselves to a long historical development they are grounded by our reality today, forcing us to confront them directly. Critical to our success is a reflexive relationship between theory and action to create multiple pathways for collaborative change The following blogs will aim to give us a clearer picture of why ‘land’ is the central organising point for this movement, what dynamics it faces today, and what we’ll also look into the work being done in response.