IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v71y2018icp584-592.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The post-socialist restitution of property as dispossession: Social dynamics and land development in Southern Albania

Author

Listed:
  • Triantis, Loukas

Abstract

The article examines the post-socialist restitution of property as a process of land dispossession related to coastal tourism development. It focuses: first on Albania, a former socialist country with distinct particularities regarding property issues which call the notion of “restitution” in question and, second, on the coastal area of Himara in Southern Albania, as a case of extreme insecurity in land tenure, absent owners, intense pressures for tourism development and particular ethnocultural features. Methodologically, it builds on the concept of accumulation by dispossession but also land rent in order to examine the benefits from land development, while it mainly rests on qualitative approaches and systematic fieldwork. The article argues that the framework on the restitution of property in Albania has been key in supporting land dispossession in the area of Himara, especially linked to tourism development. In this case, the land dispossession regimes present contextual configurations regarding the specific conjuncture and land features, the scales of capital investment and ethnocultural parameters. At the same time, the article situates land dispossession within the context of the wider land development dynamics in the area of Himara. Although accumulation by dispossession tends to favour the domestic real estate companies and investment groups, the local population has also a share in the benefits from land development mainly through informal practices and the support of local networks. By recalling the notion of land rent, the article brings evidence that rents do not only stem from the post-socialist restitution of property and accumulation by dispossession, as much of the academic scholarship suggests. They also stem from diversified social dynamics and informality, which support tourism development and mobilise rent’s distributional role, especially in a context of land tenure insecurity.

Suggested Citation

  • Triantis, Loukas, 2018. "The post-socialist restitution of property as dispossession: Social dynamics and land development in Southern Albania," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 584-592.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:71:y:2018:i:c:p:584-592
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.10.056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717304489
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.10.056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Costis Hadjimichalis, 2014. "Crisis and land dispossession in Greece as part of the global 'land fever'," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4-5), pages 502-508, October.
    2. World Bank, 2007. "Albania Urban Sector Review," World Bank Publications - Reports 19622, The World Bank Group.
    3. Derek Hall, 2013. "Primitive Accumulation, Accumulation by Dispossession and the Global Land Grab," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1582-1604, October.
    4. Harvey, David, 2005. "The New Imperialism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199278084.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Triantis, Loukas, 2020. "Public land privatisation and commodification as a field of changing social relations: The making of the Albanian Riviera," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Chanrith Ngin & Andreas Neef, 2021. "Contested Land Restitution Processes in Cambodia," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-14, May.
    3. Trembecka Anna & Kwartnik-Pruc Anita, 2018. "Problems of Real Estate Management with Respect to Claims for Restitution of Expropriated Properties," Real Estate Management and Valuation, Sciendo, vol. 26(3), pages 105-112, September.
    4. Zhllima, Edvin & Rama, Klodjan & Imami, Drini, 2021. "Agriculture land markets in transition - The inherited challenge of the post-communist land reform in Albania," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Woods, Kevin M., 2020. "Smaller-scale land grabs and accumulation from below: Violence, coercion and consent in spatially uneven agrarian change in Shan State, Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Nanhthavong, Vong & Bieri, Sabin & Nguyen, Anh-Thu & Hett, Cornelia & Epprecht, Michael, 2022. "Proletarianization and gateways to precarization in the context of land-based investments for agricultural commercialization in Lao PDR," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    3. Elise Klein, 2021. "Unpaid care, welfare conditionality and expropriation," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1475-1489, July.
    4. Julien Mercille & Enda Murphy, 2017. "What is privatization? A political economy framework," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 1040-1059, May.
    5. Yuh Jin Bae, 2019. "A Displaced Community’s Perspective on Land-Grabbing in Africa: The Case of the Kalimkhola Community in Dwangwa, Malawi," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-16, December.
    6. German, Laura A. & Bonanno, Anya M. & Foster, Laura Catherine & Cotula, Lorenzo, 2020. "“Inclusive business” in agriculture: Evidence from the evolution of agricultural value chains," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Austin Dziwornu Ablo & Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, 2022. "A SHADOWY ‘CITY OF LIGHT’: Private Urbanism, Large‐Scale Land Acquisition and Dispossession in Ghana," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 370-386, May.
    8. Triantis, Loukas, 2020. "Public land privatisation and commodification as a field of changing social relations: The making of the Albanian Riviera," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    9. Yuh Jin Bae, 2023. "Analyzing the Connection between Customary Land Rights and Land Grabbing: A Case Study of Zambia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, January.
    10. Carol Upadhya & Deeksha M Rao, 2023. "Dispossession without displacement: Producing property through slum redevelopment in Bengaluru, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 428-444, March.
    11. Patricia M Martin, 2005. "Comparative Topographies of Neoliberalism in Mexico," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(2), pages 203-220, February.
    12. Bennett, Nathan James & Govan, Hugh & Satterfield, Terre, 2015. "Ocean grabbing," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 61-68.
      • Wehner, Nicholas & Bennett, Nathan & Govan, Hugh & Satterfield, Terre, 2015. "Ocean grabbing," MarXiv bm6pf, Center for Open Science.
    13. Ahmed, Abubakari & Kuusaana, Elias Danyi & Gasparatos, Alexandros, 2018. "The role of chiefs in large-scale land acquisitions for jatropha production in Ghana: insights from agrarian political economy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 570-582.
    14. Knudsen, Daniel C. & Rickly, Jillian M. & Vidon, Elizabeth S., 2016. "The fantasy of authenticity: Touring with Lacan," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    15. Sarah Ryser, 2019. "The Anti-Politics Machine of Green Energy Development: The Moroccan Solar Project in Ouarzazate and Its Impact on Gendered Local Communities," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-21, June.
    16. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2017. "The post-political trap? Reflections on politics, agency and the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 31-43, January.
    17. Beatriz Bustos, 2015. "Moving on? Neoliberal continuities through crisis: the case of the Chilean salmon industry and the ISA virus," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1361-1375, December.
    18. Bradley R Wilson, 2013. "Breaking the Chains: Coffee, Crisis, and Farmworker Struggle in Nicaragua," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2592-2609, November.
    19. David Kyuman Kim & John L. Jackson Jr., 2011. "Introduction," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 637(1), pages 6-16, September.
    20. Gérard Duménil & Dominique Lévy, 2014. "The crisis of the early 21st Century: Marxian perspectives," Chapters, in: Riccardo Bellofiore & Giovanna Vertova (ed.), The Great Recession and the Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism, chapter 2, pages 26-49, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:71:y:2018:i:c:p:584-592. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.