In order to understand how agrarian colonization contributes to the extension of STR, it is first necessary to understand the role that state institutions play in colonization. The purpose of this section is to clarify how agrarian colonization is linked to political integration as well as economic integration. The literature has long addressed the role of the state in colonization and proposed different types of colonization: for example, state- led colonization, in which state agencies are responsible for the transplantation and welfare of colonos; induced colonization, in which state agencies do not directly support colonos but introduce strategic incentives for migration; and spontaneous colonization, in which colonos move without the active intervention of a state agency regardless of the posterior state support that they may receive.87
These three ideal types illustrate the range of possible relationships between the state and colonization. The relationship that actually obtains, I hypothesize, will affect the magnitude and pace of colonization and corresponding deforestation. Given that states possess capacities and resources that colonos rarely have access to (Torres, 2011), and which enable them to promote cooperation for development (Lange & Rueschemeyer, 2005), I predict extensive and rapid agrarian colonization when state involvement is high. Scholars agree that, historically, induced and spontaneous colonization were more
important in the Colombian Amazon than state-led colonization. Furthermore, state involvement was highest during the developmental era (1948-1982), a period when state-
led colonization projects were implemented and spontaneous colonization was not led but supported by the state.88
The belief that colonization in Colombia is largely spontaneous has been
reinforced by the idea that Amazon deforestation is mostly unplanned (Armenteras et al., 2006). By contrast, my dissertation provides several tools for analyzing the role of the state in spontaneous colonization and deforestation. I propose that the Colombian sate has always played a central role in colonization, and that my typology of STR (see Chapter 2) is useful for understanding how the state is never completely absent from unsettled lands. In short, the state provides the institutional framework and the imaginaries by virtue of which colonization occurs in the first place (Serje, 2011).
We can observe the role of agrarian colonization in promoting both economic and political integration by examining the relationship between land ownership and state territoriality. Legal geographer Nicholas Blomley (2017, p. 2) notes that “the tendency of geographers to tie territory to the state, combined with the resistance of most property scholars to engage with territory, means that there is little scholarship that focus on the territorial dimensions of property in land.” Blomley argues that property is territorialized and that such territorialization is one of the bases of state territory: the recognition of land ownership, in other words, decisively contributes to the institutionalization of state
territory (Besley & Persson, 2009; De Soto, 2000).
As in many other countries, most forest areas in the Colombian Amazon were officially public lands (baldíos) until the early 1980s.89 Institutions and ideas associated
with land acquisition, then, reached the region early and produced important effects even if they were not directly enforced by a state agency (Falleti, 2019). Formal institutions became consequential when colonos, who have historically been the vanguard of the state in the Amazon, began to occupy public forestlands. Colonos’ aspirations vis-à-vis baldíos are profoundly shaped by their own experiences as subjects of the state in their regions of origin. Colonos plant the seeds of the state and know what needs to be done in order to claim public land and increase the likelihood of obtaining a legal land title from the state (CNMH, 2017).90 One of those conditions is land clearance: the well-known mechanism
of “clearing to claim” has long been at work in the Amazon, both formally and informally (Unruh, Cligget, & Hay, 2005). Figure 3.5 illustrates the amount of land titles that the Colombian state granted during the twentieth century in the Colombian Amazon by department.
89 Utilitarian property theorists would probably classify baldíos as commons because these areas belong to everyone and yet to no one. See Alexander & Peñalver (2012) for an introduction to Utilitarian Property Theory. It is important to highlight that, historically, baldíos were the most important formal institution in the Amazon region until the early 1980s. Designation as baldíos did not mean that territories were empty: indigenous people lived in the Amazonian foothills before the onset of agrarian colonization (A. Ciro, 2008; Serje, 2011).
90 The acquisition of baldíos is becoming increasingly difficult as a result of the recent recognition of national parks and indigenous reservations (see Chapter 6).
Figure 3.5. Allocated public land to private hands in the Colombian Amazon by department Data from INCODER (2012).
Historically, most deforestation has occurred in baldíos, which can be seen as reaffirming the “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin, 1968). After all, baldíos have been colonized by self-interested individuals who know that acquiring property depends on its use and occupation. This sustained appropriation of baldíos can also be conceived as a form of “enclosure” (Polanyi, 2001) or a tragedy of the commons led by the aspirants to private owners.91 The expansion of the land market as the result of agrarian colonization
is a clear sign that territory is being institutionalized by the state. Furthermore, with the formal recognition of land property, colonos usually gain access to additional state services (De Soto, 2000).
91 Colonos’ aspirations are only sometimes fulfilled by state agencies as part of a slow-moving process that is neither peaceful nor mechanistic.
A summary of the argument thus far is the following: colonos move to forested areas, clear the land, establish a farm, finance a town, and facilitate both the economic and political integration of the territory. Densely forested areas tend to be brown zones because one rarely finds (1) penetrating forms of state reach without agrarian
colonization or (2) agrarian colonization without deforestation.