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Images of Community: Discourse and Strategy in Property Relations
Author(s) -
Li Tania Murray
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.1996.tb00601.x
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , meaning (existential) , sociology , politics , context (archaeology) , property (philosophy) , appropriation , vocabulary , confusion , action (physics) , property rights , law and economics , epistemology , political science , law , linguistics , geography , psychology , philosophy , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , psychoanalysis
This article argues that divergent images of community result not from inadequate knowledge or confusion of purpose, but from the location of discourse and action in the context of specific struggles and dilemmas. It supports the view that ‘struggles over resources’ are also ‘struggles over meaning’. It demonstrates the ways in which contests over the distribution of property are articulated in terms of competing representations of community at a range of levels and sites. It suggests that, through the exercise of ‘practical political economy’, particular representations of community can be used strategically to strengthen the property claims of potentially disadvantaged groups. In the policy arena, advocates for ‘community based resource management’ have represented communities as sites of consensus and sustain‐ability. Though idealized, such representations have provided a vocabulary with which to defend the rights of communities vis‐à‐vis states. Poor farmers, development planners, consultants and academics can also use representations of community strategically to achieve positive effects, or at least to mitigate negative ones. Most, but not all, of the illustrations in this article are drawn from Indonesia, with special reference to Central Sulawesi.