Do communitarian values justify Papua New Guinean and/or Fijian systems of land tenure?
Communitarians have alleged a connection between according specialrights to community groupings and preserving the indigenous cultureand the social cohesion of the original community. This paperconcentrates upon special group rights associated with land tenurenow maintained by Fijian Mataqali and traditional land owninggroups in Papua New Guinea. The first section of the paper assessesand compares the social consequences of each of these systems withspecial attention to the preservation of traditional culture.However, in the case of Fiji, it is undeniable that the mataqaliland tenure system has given indigenous Fijians politicaladvantages over non-indigenous Fijians, most specifically theFijian Indians. Though special land rights can possibly bejustified on the grounds of cultural preservation, their existencedoes raise this further issue of fairness. Moral considerations basedupon the territorial sovereignty of indigenous nations, rather thancommunitarian arguments, may offer a more convincing justificationof the advantages of indigenous Fijians.
An Approach to Political Philosophy: Rediscovering America: the Two treatises and aboriginal rights
INTRODUCTION Three hundred years after its publication the Two treatises continues to present one of the major political philosophies of the modern world. By this I mean it provides a set of concepts we standardly use to represent and reflect on contemporary politics. This arrangement of concepts is not the only form of reflection on modern politics, not our ‘horizon’ so to speak, but it is a familiar and customary one. At the centre of Locke's political philosophy is a theory that accounts for much of its appeal. This is a delegation theory of popular sovereignty built out of two concepts: political society and property. First, political societies are said to be derived from the delegated political powers of the individual members. The members always retain the right to regain these powers when their governors act contrary to their trust, overthrow them by means of revolution, and set up new governors as they think good. Second, the productive powers of any political society are said to be derived from the labour power, the property, of the individual members. These powers also are, as Locke puts it, ‘given up’ in establishing political societies so they may be ‘regulated’ by government for the public good. Again, if labour power is regulated contrary to the trust the members have the right to overthrow their governors and set up new ones.
Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England
Thirtyve years ago William Cronon wrote Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. It has aged well. The continued relevance of the book is likely a result of two things. First, it is eminently readable. Flipping through the pages, one can imagine the forests that Cronon describes and feel his connection to them. Second, the problem he poses about the limits of disciplinary work in writing the history of environmental change are more poignant now than ever before, as humanists across disciplines attempt to write to current concerns about climate change and the relationship between humans and nature. Cronon argues that the cultural and ecological consequences of colonization are deeply connected. As such, they demand the tools of both a historian and an ecologist. He traces the process by which Indigenous communities and European communities made meaning of the environment to the ecological changes that resulted from the in ux of a new culture. His book is not meant to suggest a single material cause of con ict, but looks at how cultural histories of diverse issues – such as land acquisition, the development of capitalist economies, the growth of towns, and the fur trade – can bene t from studying the relationship between human action and ecological consequence.