A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LAND TENURE, PROPERTY BOUNDARIES, AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION: EXAMPLES FROM BOLIVIA AND NORWAY

This paper compares and contrasts patterns of land tenure, property boundaries, and dispute resolution regarding property using examples from two diverse social and economic regions: Bolivia and Norway. The goal of the paper is essentially a comparative one. By placing the examples of Bolivia and Norway side by side, the authors hope to shed light on common strategies while recognizing the diversity to be found in the ways that people relate to land. It is hoped that readers will be able to compare the material here with examples from other regions. By using data based on field research and related methods from two regions starkly distinguished from each other by language, socioeconomic levels, political histories, and extent of integration into world markets, the authors present a picture of how people interact with their bounded environments and the various meanings that they construct through such environments. Norway has one of the highest standards of living in the world and is in many ways a model of economic and social efficiency; Bolivia, by contrast, is characterized by extreme ecological zones and has struggled for most of its 170 years of independence to both maintain its population at the most basic of levels and to achieve social stability. Yet, despite these significant historical and contemporary differences, the ways in which people relate to land in both countries are often remarkably similar, particularly in rural areas.