11.S941: Planning against Evictions and Displacement

Units: 2-2-8 (H)

Spring 2015

Wednesdays: 5 to 7 pm.

Room: 9-451

Instructor:

Prof. Miloon Kothari ()

Description:

This 12-unit course will combine state of the art research on evictions and displacement globally, in the context of the global crisis of evictions and land grabbing, with the state of the art policy and practice on responses to displacement. The first half of the course will cover the explanations about the mechanisms and drivers of displacement including global commodification, urbanization including land and property speculation, new growth, and relevant development theories, climate change, violent conflict, and nationalism, and the search for alternative forms of relations to land beyond commodification, including through alternative approaches to property such as a rights-based approach to land and housing, the commons, and informal property rights. The second half of the course will introduce and evaluate the policy and legal responses the world, includingthe UN and civil society campaigns and movements, has developed to deal with displacement and evictions, at the national and international levels, and evaluate the use of UN and national standards as well astools such as the Eviction Impact Assessment Tool,and participatory mapping technology, through selected case studies.

The pedagogical purpose of the course is to offer an intellectual framework for understanding one of the world’s most pressing phenomena, which has a serious impact on many domains ofplanning including housing, infrastructure and industrialization and design, and to prepare students to use tools and methods for improving their capacity for planning that is more equitable and just.

No prerequisites are needed.

Grading:

Weekly blog on the readings: 50%

Mock planning exercise: 30%

Class participation: 20%

Weekly blog: More than a summary of the readings, the blog invites you to be analytical, and opinionated, critically engaging with the materials, but going beyond them to draw on on-going cases and other materials from outside of the class syllabus. Each blog must be between 800-1000 words, be titled and submitted on time through Stellar on ‘Forum’. Each week blog entries are due by 12 noon on Wednesday. The first week is exempted from this.

Mock planning exercise: Details to come soon.

No final paper.

The Lab work component of the course (2 hours per week) is to be spent reviewing audio-visual materials relating to the course, and preparing tools for field work in India during the summer. The audio-visual materials will be recommended as the course develops.

This course is a part of the work of the MIT Displacement Research and Action Network (DRAN): The course will draw upon the ongoing research and field work at DRAN including the mapping displacement work completed in New Delhi in August 2014.

Class 1: 02/04/15: Displacement: An Introduction to the phenomenon

Video: Yamuna Gently Weeps (New Delhi, India)

  1. Lorenzo Cotula, The international political economy of the global land rush: A critical appraisal of trends, scale, geography and drivers, The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol.39, Issue 3-4, (2012), pp.349-380.
  2. IDMC, Global Overview 2012: People internally displaced by conflict and violence(29 April 2013) pp.8-15, available at
  3. Anthony Oliver Smith, Development-Forced Displacement and Resettlement: A Global Human Rights Crisis, in Development and Dispossession: The Crisis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement (2009), chapter 1.
  4. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, The Violence of Development, Washington Post, 9 August 2001.
  5. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Statement to the World Urban Forum III (19-23 June 2006) in Vancouver
  6. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Annual Report (Forced Evictions) to the UN Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2004/48

Part I: Impacts of Displacement

Class 2: 02/11/15: Socio-economic and health impacts

Video: Dub (documentary on submergence and resettlement from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, India)

  1. Michael Cernea, Understanding and Preventing Impoverishment from Displacement: Reflections on the State of Knowledge, in Christopher McDowell, Understanding Impoverishment: The Consequences of Development-Induced Displacement (1996), pp.13-32.
  2. Michael Cernea, “The Risks and Reconstruction Model for Resettling Displaced Populations,” World Development, vol. 25, no. 10 (1997).
  3. Cao,Yue, Sean-Shong Hwang, and Juan Xi. 2012. “Project-Induced Displacement, Secondary Stressors, and Health.”Social Science and Medicine72:1130-38.
  4. Goessling, Kristen. P. 2010 . “Mining Induced Displacement and Mental Health: A Call for Action”,International Journal For The Advancement of Counseling,32 ( 3): 153-164. Accessed July 22, 2013 at:
  5. HLRN, Planned Dispossession Report
  6. Miloon Kothari, “The psychological impact of forced evictions on children”, Paper presented to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child,
  7. Kedia, Satish. 2009. Health Consequences of Dam Construction and Involuntary Resettlement, inDevelopment and Dispossession: The Crisis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement (2009), pp.97-11
  8. Good, Byron J. “Mental Health Consequences of Displacement and Resettlement,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 31, no. 24 (June 15, 1996), pp. 1504-1508.
  9. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Report (Women and Housing) to the UN Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2006/118OHCHR, Women and Housing, 2011

Case Study: Three Gorges

  1. Jing, Jun. “Rural Resettlement: Past Lessons for the Three Gorges Project,” The China Journal, no. 38 (July 1997).
  2. Steil, Shawn and Duan Yuefang. “Policies and Practice in Three Gorges Resettlement: A Field Account,” Forced Migration Review, 12 (January 2002), pp. 10-13.
  3. Hwang, Sean-Shong, Yue Cao, and Juan Xi. 2011. “The Short-Term Social, Economic, and Health Impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam Project: A Prospective Study.”Social Indicators Research101:73-92.
  4. Xi, Juan and Sean-Shong Hwang. 2011. “Relocation Stress, Coping, and Sense of Control among Resettlers Resulting from China’s Three Gorges Dam Project”Social Indicators Research104: 507-522.
  5. Xi, Juan and Sean-Shong Hwang. 2011. “Unmet Expectations and Symptoms of Depression among the Three Gorges Project Resettlers.”Social Science Research40:245-56.
  6. Xi, Juan, Sean-Shong Hwang, and Patricia Drentea. 2013. “Experiencing a Forced Relocation at Different Life Stages: the Effects of China’s Three-Gorges Project-Induced Relocation on Depression”Society and Mental Health3: 69-76.

Class 3: 02/18/15: Impacts onculture, environment, food, politics and human rights more broadly

  1. Theodore Downing and Carmen Garcia Downing, Routine and Dissonant Cultures, in Development and Dispossession: The Crisis of Forced Displacement and Resettlement (2009), pp.225-254.
  2. Smita Narula, The Global Land Rush: Markets, Rights, and the Politics of Food, 49 STAN. J. INT’L L. 101 (2013).
  3. GELBSPAN, PRIOSTE. Thea, Fernando G. V. Land in the struggle for social justice: social movement strategies to secure human rights. published by Terra de Direitos, Curitiba, 2013 (four case studies)
  4. Rudolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people’s, Annual Report (Impact of Development Projects on Indigenous People’s) to the UN Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2003/90
  5. Desmond, Matthew, Weihua An, Richelle Winkler, and Thomas Ferriss. 2013. Evicting Children. Social Forces 92, no. 1: 303-327.
  6. Margaret Sekageyya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Annual Report (Impact of development projects on human rights defenders) to the UN General Assembly, A/68/262

Case Study:Baljeet Nagar, Delhi

  1. HLRN (2011), The Cruel Side of Delhi's Beautification: Illegal Demolition in Baljeet Nagar, Report of a Public Hearing (June 2011) available at

Part II: Drivers and mechanisms of displacement

Class 4: 02/25/14: Land speculation, commodification, finance and development

  1. Oakland Institute, Betting on Agriculture: US Private Equity Managers Eye Agricultural Returns (2012).
  2. White B, Borras Jr SM, Hall R, Scoones I and Wolford W (2012), ‘The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals’, Journal of Peasant Studies(editors’ introduction to special issue) 39 (3&4): 619–647.
  3. Saskia Sassen, ‘Land Grabs Today: Feeding the Disassembling of National Territory’, vol.10, Issue 1, Globalizations (2013).
  4. Larry Vale, “The Displacement Decathlon: Olympian Struggles for Affordable Housing from Atlanta to Rio de Janeiro,” with Annemarie Gray, Places, April 2013 available at
  5. Mishra S, Chaudhry S, Kothari M (2010) The 2010 Commonwealth Games: Whose Wealth? Whose Commons?, Housing and Land Rights Network, New Delhi

Case study: Readings on Land Corridors (Plan Pueblo Panama, India’s Look-East Policy)

Guest discussant: Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, Oakland Institute (TBC)

Class 5: 03/04/15: Violent conflict

  1. Mooney, Erin. "The concept of internal displacement and the case for internally displaced persons as a category of concern." Refugee Survey Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2005): 9.
  2. Robert Muggah, “A Tale of Two Solitudes: Comparing Conflict and Development-induced Internal Displacement and Involuntary Resettlement”.International Migration 45, no. 5 (2003): 5.
  3. Michael Cernea, “Development-induced and Conflict-induced IDPs: Bridging the Research Divide”. Forced Migration Review. Special Issue (December): 25-27 (2006).
  4. Schechla, Joseph. “Housing and Land Violations as War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity”, in Housing and Land Rights Network, The Summer War on Habitat in Lebanon: Addressing Housing Rights Violations as War Crimes, Cairo, HLRN, 2006, annex 1-24

Case study: Kampala Convention on Internal Displacement

Guest speaker: Joseph Schechla, Coordinator, Housing and Land Rights Network, Habitat International Coalition

Class 6: 03/11/15: Climate change, disasters, and ‘green grab’

  1. James Fairhead, Melissa Leach & Ian Scoones, ‘Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:2, 237-261 (2012).
  2. Catherine Corson & Kenneth Iain MacDonald, ‘Enclosing the globalcommons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing’, The Journal of PeasantStudies, 39:2, 263-283 (2012).
  3. IDMC, ‘Technical Paper: The Risk of Disaster-induced Displacement’ (2013), available at
  4. Jane McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration and International Law (2012), chapters 1 and 6.
  5. HLRN (2005), Post-Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation: A Violation of Human Rights: Report of a Fact-finding Mission to Tsunami-affected Areas of Tamil Nadu, India and Sri Lanka, Fact-Finding Report No. 8 (2005)

Guest speaker: Shivani Chaudhry, Executive Director, Housing and Land Rights Network, India(TBC)

Class 7: 03/18/15: Eminent domain, land acquisition, economic development

  1. Liz Alden Wily, ‘Looking back to see forward: the legal niceties of landtheft in land rushes’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39:3-4, 751-775 (2012).
  2. Usha Ramanathan, ‘A Word on Eminent Domain’ in Lyla Mehta ed., Displaced by Development – Confronting Marginalisation and Gender Injustice (New Delhi: Sage, 2009), p. 133.
  3. Sanjoy Chakravorty, The Price of Land (2013), chapter 8.
  4. Levien, Michael. 2012. “The Land Question: Special Economic Zones and the Political Economy of Dispossession in India.” Journal of Peasant Studies 39 (3-4): 933-969.

Case study: Posco

  1. International Human Rights Clinic, ESCR-Net, The Price of Steel: Human Rights and Forced Evictions in the POSCO-India Project (New York, NYU School of Law, 2013).

Guest speaker: Prof. Mike Levien, Johns Hopkins (TBC)

NO CLASS ON 25TH MARCH – SPRING BREAK

Part III: Responses to displacement

Class 8: 04/01/15: Setting new law, norms and policy

  1. UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (2008, annotated, Walter Kalin ed.)
  2. UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement
  3. Roberta Cohen, ‘Lessons Learned from the Development of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ (October 2013), available at
  4. Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, Beyond the Courtroom: The Impact of Judicial Activism on Socioeconomic Rights in Latin America, 89 Tex. L. Rev. 1669 2010-2011
  5. World Bank, Asian Development Bank: Guidelines
  6. IFC, Performance Standards
  7. Critiques, IAP

Class 9: 04/08/15: Changing the politics of enforcement: Strategic engagement of States and civil society

  1. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below (2003), chapter 8.
  2. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, “Limits of Law in counter-hegemonic globalization: The Indian Supreme Court and the Narmada Valley Struggle” in Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito eds., Law and Globalization from Below: Towards a Cosmopolitan Legality (2005).
  3. Rajni Kothari, Masses, Classes and the Statein New Social Movements in the South: Empowering the People (P.Wignaraja ed., 1993), pp.59-75.
  4. Burstein, Paul. 1996. Social Movements and Public Policy. Pp. 3-21 in Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly (eds.). How Social Movements Matter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  5. Beth Stephens, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics (2009), chapters 1 and 4.

Case study:Mexico IPT on large dams; report of International People's Tribunal Pre-Hearing.

Class 10: 04/15/15: Structural and institutional changes: decentralization and devolution and free, prior informed consent

  1. Bardhan, Pranab. Decentralization of Governance and Development. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 16, Number 4, Fall 2002.
  2. International Council on Human Rights, Local Self-Rule: Decentralization and Human Rights, pages 1-35 (2002
  3. Cheema, G. Shabbir and Dennis Rondinelli. From Government Decentralization to Decentralized Governance. In Decentralizing Governance Emerging Concepts and Practices. 2007. Cheema, G. Shabbir and Dennis Rondinelli.
  4. George Mathew, “Panchayati Raj Institutions and Human Rights in India”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Jan. 11-17, 2003), pp. 155-162.
  5. FPIC Guidelines, UN-REDD (2013).

Case study: Forest Rights Act, India

  1. Pradip Prabhu, Inclusion In Law And Exclusion In Praxis: The Scheduled Tribes & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition Of Forest Rights) Act 2006, Socio-Legal Review, vo.6, (2010), pp.120-140

Guest Speaker: Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, UN Human Rights Council

Class 11: 04/22/15: Changing the policy context: Degrowth, and alternative property regimes

1.Giorgos Kallis, Christian Kerschner, Joan Martinez-Alier, The economics of degrowth, Ecological Economics 84 (2012) 172–180

2.van Griethuysen P, Why are we growth-addicted? The hard way towards degrowth in the involutionary western development path, J Clean Prod (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.07.006

3.Eduardo Penalver and Sonya Katyal, Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership (2010), chapter 1.

Case Study:

Role of Via Campesina and the development of UN Declaration on Peasant Rights

  1. Annette Aurelie Desmarais, La Via Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants (2007), chapters 2,3 and 6.
  2. Draft International Declaration of Peasants Rights, 2012 (UN).

Class 12: 04/29/15: A negotiation session on resettlement involving a project: A mock exercise

Source Materials:

  1. Muthurwa final judgment
  2. YashGhai Affidavit
  3. Miloon Kothari Affidavit
  4. Muthurwa interim judgment
  5. Petition

Case Study: Muthurwa, Nairobi, Kenya

Class 13: 05/06/15: Use of technology as a countervailing power

Guest speaker: Ethan Zuckerman, Media Lab, MIT

Class 14: 05/13/14: Reflective session with students and audio-visual material

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