Title: Partible Inheritance and Land Fragmentation in a Oaxaca Village
Abstract:Theodore E. Downing is the Research Specialist for the Bureau of Ethnic Research and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University o f Arizona. His research on Zapotec peasant Indians was supp...Theodore E. Downing is the Research Specialist for the Bureau of Ethnic Research and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University o f Arizona. His research on Zapotec peasant Indians was supported, in part, by a predoctoral training fellowship from the National Institutes o f Mental Health. The author thanks Professors George Collier, Robert Netting, Harumi Befu and Robert Eder for criticisms which revivified earlier drafts o f this paper. L that AND FRAGMENTATION is accused of being an obstacle to agricultural development. It is claimed fragmentation wastes the farmer's time, energy, and resources; reduces yields; sacrifices scarce land to defining boundaries between fields; hampers the introduction of mechanized farming; and encourages rural to urban migration by making it impossible for him to stay on the farm. In a comprehensive discussion of land fragmentation and its legislative remedy, consolidation, Binns (1950) suggests that excessive fragmentation will occur in regions with: (1) long established agriculture; (2) limited land; (3) increasing population density; (4) strong microecological variations; (5) little nonagricultural employment; and (6) where land is the principle object of investment. Moreover, Binns and others (Wolf 1966:76-77; Jacoby 1953:22, Leibenstein 1963:4 1) claim that land fragmentation is a consequence of a pattern of partible inheritance which stresses the equal division of land to coheirs.Read More
Publication Year: 1977
Publication Date: 1977-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 9
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