A comparative study of land tenure,property boundaries,and dispute resolution: case studies from Bolivia and Norway

This article explores issues related to land in both rural Bolivia and Norway. Our purpose is essentially comparative: by exploring land tenure patterns, property boundaries, and dispute resolution processes in two distinctly different social and economic contexts, we hope to shed light on common patterns in the ways people in rural areas interact with bounded environments. At the same time, we also will draw attention to important differences in these interactions. 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 a country that is characterized by extreme ecological zones and is a nation that 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, both countries share an important commonality: land in rural areas serves both practical and symbolic functions. Any study of the complex ways in which rural people relate to land in both countries that does not take both of these equally important functions into consideration will be critically incomplete.