Just and equitable responses to the disparate impacts of climate change on communities and individuals throughout the world are at the heart of the concept of climate justice. Commodification, in the context of my research, is the process of monetizing nature and livelihoods for the purpose of surplus accumulation and profit maximization. In this study, my aim was to contextualize the concepts of climate injustice, disaster capitalism, and the commodification of lives and livelihoods in the specific setting of disaster vulnerability in southwest coastal Bangladesh. By conducting a case study in Kamarkhola and Sutarkhali regions of southwest coastal Bangladesh, I utilized discourse analysis and content analysis of livelihood interviews, semi-structured interviews, and policy documents to demonstrate the conceptual interrelation among global climate change, climate injustice, disaster capitalism, and capitalist expansion in environmentally precarious areas. I argue that in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh, the vulnerability to disasters stems from a complex and multifaceted layer of social hierarchies and inequalities, entwined with factors such as class and power relations. I also argue that Inequalities in the political, economic, and social realms have a key role in imposing vulnerability on disadvantaged people living in ecologically vulnerable areas. The perpetuation of inequality is sustained by the expansion and accumulation of capital through the dispossession and exploitation of natural resources. The existing approaches to climate change adaptation in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh are deeply entrenched in neoliberal capitalism. The introduction of neoliberal economic policies, such as the privatization of state lands and the promotion of export-oriented aquaculture, created favorable conditions for capitalist expansion in environmentally vulnerable places through "accumulation by dispossession."

Com a instauração do Estado do Tocantins em 1989, o primeiro governo eleito delibera em favor da edificação de uma cidade, Palmas, para ser a capital estadual. Para tanto, fazia-se imprescindível selecionar o sítio e, na sequência, desapropriar as terras necessárias à implantação dessa capital, incluindo as áreas de expansão urbanas, a partir da declaração de utilidade pública, estabelecida pelos poderes Executivo e Legislativo estaduais. Nessas terras sujeitas à desapropriação, encontravam-se propriedades e posses rurais, algumas em processo de regularização fundiária e os povoados de Canela e de Taquaralto. Portanto, tratava-se de um sítio já apropriado e não de um sítio propriamente natural e completamente vazio de ocupação, o que incluía uma ação discriminatória impetrada pelo Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária em 1982. De abril de 1989 a fevereiro de 1991, encaminha-se, amparado em decretos desapropriatórios do poder Executivo e também no decreto do poder Legislativo, que deliberava sobre a área a ser desapropriada e não sobre a desapropriação em si, um conjunto de ações de desapropriação ao poder Judiciário. Essas ações atingem terras do sítio necessário à implantação da capital, desconsiderando a ação discriminatória em trâmite, e terras além desse sítio necessário, o que caracteriza desvio de finalidade, tendo em vista o objetivo da declaração de utilidade pública. Os dados evidenciam que o principal instrumento para as desapropriações foi o referido decreto legislativo, utilizado, sobretudo, para abranger as terras citadas na ação discriminatória; enquanto que os decretos de desapropriação do poder Executivo atingem imóveis regularizados em 1979 e 1981. Na tramitação da maioria das ações judiciais de desapropriação, de 1989 a 1997, alguns dos expropriados aceitam as indenizações monetárias propostas e outros firmam acordos mais vantajosos, inclusive por meio do repasse de glebas de terras urbanas e rurais, além da indenização monetária proposta. A maioria das ações judiciais propostas a partir do decreto legislativo foi anulada pela ausência do decreto de desapropriação do poder Executivo. Devido a isso, em 1992 e 1993, o governo estadual vigente faz uso de procedimentos administrativos de desapropriação, considerada desapropriação amigável, novamente amparado no decreto do poder Legislativo. Enfatiza-se que alguns dos acordos firmados não foram cumpridos pelo expropriante. Ademais, os governos estaduais, paralelamente às ações de desapropriação, lançam mão de atos despossessórios arbitrários e abusivos (1990-1991 e 1999), com a apoderação das terras implicadas, por meio do cancelamento administrativo das matrículas dos imóveis dos atingidos, nos respectivos cartórios de registros, e da criação de novas matrículas registradas, no cartório de Palmas, em nome do Estado do Tocantins. Ressalta-se que, no ato despossessório de 1999, são canceladas matrículas cujas origens da aquisição tiveram domínio no próprio Estado ou instituições afins. Isso ocorre em decorrência da interpretação arbitrária e equivocada da sentença da ação discriminatória, julgada em 1992, mas levada à segunda instância, nesse mesmo ano, por meio de uma ação cível, impetrada pelo Ministério Público do Tocantins e julgada em 1997, com carta sentença expedida em 1999. Essas ações e atos arbitrários e abusivos dos governos estaduais provocam grande insatisfação nos atingidos (os expropriados), que, primeiramente, buscam negociar com o próprio Estado do Tocantins (o expropriante), sem sucesso, e, por fim, recorrem aos tribunais do poder Judiciário em busca da resolução para os problemas enfrentados com as desapropriações e as despossessões. Desse modo, principia-se um imbróglio judiciário e cria-se um contexto de insegurança com relação à posse e à propriedade fundiária desde o início da implantação da cidade. Nessa conjuntura, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender o imbróglio que envolve as desapropriações e as despossessões de terras para a implantação de Palmas, a capital projetada do Estado do Tocantins, enfatizando os papéis dos governos estaduais e dos moradores da área atingida, para quem as terras eram terras de uso, de trabalho, de sobrevivência; e para quem as indenizações deveriam garantir, apesar das mudanças significativas nos hábitos, a continuidade de seu modo vida. Para tanto, os procedimentos de análise fundamentam-se em pesquisas bibliográfica, documental e de campo. Os impasses envolvendo o expropriante e parte dos expropriados que tiveram suas matrículas canceladas no ato despossessório de 1999 são, primeiramente, julgados no Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Tocantins, que, em 2003, delibera a favor do expropriante, e, posteriormente, no Superior Tribunal de Justiça, que, em 2005, dá ganho de causa aos atingidos. Diante das irresoluções, recorre-se, também, à Corregedoria Geral de Justiça e ao Conselho Nacional de Justiça, que, em 2010, determinam que a sentença deliberada pelo Superior Tribunal de Justiça seja cumprida em favor dos atingidos, determinando que o cartório de registro de imóveis de Palmas restabeleça todas as matrículas canceladas indevidamente no último ato de despossessão (1999). Em paralelo, no Tribunal de Justiça do Estado do Tocantins, outros atingidos, que recorrem em função dos descumprimentos dos acordos nas desapropriações consideradas amigáveis de 1992 e 1993, têm ganhos de causa em 2009, 2010 e 2016. Assim, resta ao Estado do Tocantins acatar as decisões judiciais e dar início às novas negociações e aos novos acordos com os expropriados, o que implica novas ações de desapropriação que, nesse momento, envolvem, além do Estado do Tocantins, a prefeitura municipal de Palmas e, até mesmo, a União, bem como os muitos adquirentes dessas terras, para quem se faz necessárias ações de regularização fundiária. Assim, após anos de lutas, os expropriados têm suas demandas alcançadas, com o restabelecimento das matrículas de seus imóveis, que resulta na devolução de suas terras e as devidas e justas indenizações monetárias e em terras urbanas por meio das dações em pagamento indenizatórias. / The first elected government of Tocantins - after the creation of the new Brazilian state in 1989 - deliberates in favor of the construction of a city, Palmas, to be the capital of the state. In order to accomplish it, it was essential to choose a site and, subsequently, to expropriate the necessary land for creating the capital, including urban expansion areas, once the declaration of public utility was made, established by the government Executive and Legislative branches. In the lands meant to expropriation, there were properties and rural possessions, some of them in process of regularization, as well as the towns of Canela and Taquaralto. It was, therefore, a private land rather than a natural and completely free from occupation site, which included a discriminatory action brought by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform in 1982. From April 1989 to February 1991, it is submitted, supported by the state of Tocantins government decrees of the Executive and Legislative branches, which deliberated on the area to be expropriated and not only on the expropriation itself, but also on a set of actions of expropriation concerning the Judiciary branch. These actions reach the site necessary for the implementation of the capital, disregarding the discriminatory action in progress, and lands beyond the necessary, which characterize a deviation of purpose, which is the declaration of public utility. The data showed that the main instrument for expropriations was the aforementioned legislative decree, mainly used to cover the lands mentioned in the discriminatory action, while the decrees of expropriation of the Executive branch regularized properties in 1979 and 1981. In the course of most of the expropriation lawsuits, from 1989 to 1997, some of the expropriated landowners accept the proposed monetary indemnity and others sign better agreements, including the transfer of land property in urban and rural lands in addition to the proposed monetary indemnity. Most of the lawsuits brought by the legislative decree were cancelled by the absence of the decree of expropriation of the Executive branch. Due to this, in 1992 and 1993, the current state government makes use of administrative expropriation procedures, considered friendly expropriation, again supported by the decree of the Legislative Power. It is emphasized that some of the agreements were not fulfilled by the State. In addition, the government of Tocantins, in parallel with the expropriation actions, use arbitrary and abusive dispossessions (1990-1991 and 1999), with the appropriation of the lands involved, through the administrative cancelation of the property registrations at the registration notaries, and the creation of new registrations in the notary of Palmas, in the name of the state of Tocantins. It should be noted that, at the dispossession of 1999, registrations are cancelled, which origins of the acquisition were on the State or similar institutions. This occurs as a result of the arbitrary and misleading interpretation of the sentence of discriminatory action, judged in 1992, but brought to the second instance, in that same year, through a civil action, filed by the Public Prosecutor of Tocantins and judged in 1997, issued in 1999. These arbitrary and abusive acts of the state government provoke great dissatisfaction with the victims (the expropriated landowners), who, first, seek to negotiate with the Tocantins state, without success, and finally appeal to the courts of the Judiciary branch in search of a resolution to the problems faced by expropriations and dispossession. Thus, a legal imbroglio begins and a context of insecurity with regard to property and land ownership is created from the beginning of the implantation of the city. Due to these facts, this research has as objective to understand the imbroglio that involves the expropriations and the dispossessions of lands for the implantation of Palmas, the planned capital of Tocantins, emphasizing the roles of the state government and the residents of the affected area were emphasized, for whom the lands were land of living, of labor, of survival; and to whom reparations should ensure, despite significant changes in habits, the continuity of their way of life. For that, the analysis procedures are based on documents, bibliography and field research. The impasses involving the government and part of the expropriated landowners that had their registrations canceled in the dispossession act of 1999 are, firstly, judged in the Court of Justice of Tocantins, which, in 2003, decides in favor of the government, and later in the Superior Court of Justice, which, in 2005, rule consenting to those affected by the issue. In response to the unresolved matters, the Courts of Justice and the National Council of Justice, which in 2010, determines that the sentence decided by the Superior Court of Justice is in favor of those affected, determining that the notary of Palmas must restore all the registrations improperly canceled in the last act of dispossession (1999). In parallel, in the Court of Justice of the State of Tocantins, others affected, who appeals because of the noncompliance of the agreements in the expropriations considered friendly of 1992 e 1993, have their gain of cause in 2009, 2010 and 2016. Thus, the only issue for the State of Tocantins is to accept the decisions and new agreements with the expropriated, which implies new expropriation actions that involves, in addition to the State of Tocantins, the city hall of Palmas and even the Federal government, as well as the many acquirers of these lands, for whom land regularization actions are necessary. Thus, after years of struggle, the expropriated have their demands achieved, with the restoration of their property registrations, which results in the return of their lands and the due and fair monetary reparations and in urban lands by means of lieu of the damages paid.

Cette recherche doctorale vise une meilleure compréhension des facteurs sous-tendant les phénomènes de conservation et de dépossession des biens de consommation, et se focalise plus spécifiquement sur le comportement de dépossession volontaire de vente d’occasion C to C (Consumer to Consumer). L’état de l’art de ce champ d’études, peu développé en comportement du consommateur, met en exergue des manques conceptuels et empiriques que nous investiguons au travers de trois axes de recherche : 1) les comportements du consommateur à l’égard des possessions dont il n’a plus l’utilité ; 2) les mécanismes motivationnels en œuvre dans la dépossession volontaire des biens via la vente d’occasion ; 3) les profils des consommateurs s’improvisant vendeurs, que nous nommons les «consommerçants» (contraction de «consommateur» et «commerçant»). Cinq études qualitatives exploratoires sont réalisées - une netnographie, deux vagues d’entretiens semi-directifs, un focus group, des entretiens d’expert- puis complétées par deux collectes de données quantitatives (N=127 et N=646). Le construit de Motivations à la Vente d’Occasion (MVO) apparait notamment lié au choix du circuit de vente (virtuel ou physique). Les analyses confirmatoires menées au moyen de modèles de premier et second ordre révèlent quatre dimensions du construit : récréationnelle, économique, générative, et critique. A partir de l'élaboration de l'échelle de mesure des MVO présentant des qualités psychométriques satisfaisantes (fiabilité et validité convergente, discriminante et prédictive), et des variables sociodémographiques, psychologiques et comportementales mobilisées, quatre profils de consommerçants sont identifiés. / This doctoral research aims at understanding the underlying factors associated with conservation and dispossession of consumer goods. We particularly focus on voluntary dispossession behavior through C to C (Consumer to Consumer) secondhand resale. The literature on this topic is underdeveloped by consumer behavior researchers. We address these theoretical and empirical gaps along three main research axes: 1) consumer behavior towards possessions of which they have no further use; 2) motivational mechanisms associated with voluntary dispossession through secondhand resale; 3) a typology analysis of consumers who improvise as salesmen (we classify them as “consommerçants”, by means of a French neologism combining the terms “consumer” and “tradesman” ). Five exploratory qualitative studies – a netnography, two series of semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and expert interviews – are carried out, and supplemented by two quantitative data collections (N=127 and N=646). Among other primary results, the Secondhand Selling Motivations construct (SSM) is related to the choice of distribution channel (virtual or physical). Moreover, confirmatory analyses conducted via first and second order measurement models reveals four dimensions defining this construct : recreational, economic, generative, and critical. Through the use of the SSM measurement scale, which demonstrates satisfactory psychometric qualities (reliability, as well as convergent, discriminate and predictive validity), and other demographical, psychological and behavioral variables, we establish four profiles of consommerçants via cluster analysis.

Even 24 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, modern day Germans are still preoccupied with the contentious dynamics of the post-Wall unification process. Concern with geo-political fractiousness is deeply rooted in German history and the reason for Germany's desire to become a unified nation. The Fall of the Wall, and the subsequent rejection of socialism, was a chance to recover and unify what was perceived to be an "incomplete" nation. Yet, despite these actions, social unity between East and West Germans has never occurred and the Wall still persists as a metaphorical barrier in the minds of German citizens. Thus, the unification process should be critically evaluated so that the lingering (social) disunity between East and West Germans may be better understood and potentially remedied. This thesis examines how two post-Wall films, Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) and Berlin is in Germany (2001) reveal patterns that explain the lingering disunity between East and West from an underrepresented lens: an East German perspective. I do so by investigating whether these films offer insights into the culture of the former GDR, which was ideologically, institutionally, and socio-economically divided from the West for over 40 years. This argument is supported by an analysis of how Good Bye, Lenin! and Berlin is in Germany confront the audience with a new (East German) hero who has to navigate a "foreign" terrain and is expected to adapt to and embrace this entirely new culture. Both films allude to the East German sentiment of longing for GDR culture and values as an attempt to maintain an East German identity while being threatened by overpowering "colonization" by the West.

Over the last forty years, the self-determination claims of Indigenous peoples in Canada have increasingly been cast in the language of “recognition”: recognition of Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, recognition of an Indigenous right to land and self-government, recognition of the right to benefit from the development of Indigenous territories and resources, and so on. In addition, the last fifteen years have witnessed a proliferation of scholarship which has sought to flesh-out the ethical, legal and political questions that these claims tend to raise. Subsequently, “recognition” has now come to occupy a central place in our efforts to comprehend what is at stake in contestations over identity and difference in liberal settler-polities more generally. The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, I want to challenge the now commonplace assumption that the colonial relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada can be reconciled via such a politics of recognition. Second, I want to explore glimpses of an alternative politics. More specifically, drawing critically from Indigenous and non-Indigenous intellectual and activist traditions, I will explore a politics of self-recognition that is less oriented around attaining an affirmative form of recognition from Indigenous peoples’ master-other (the liberal settler-state and society), and more about critically revaluating, reconstructing and redeploying Indigenous cultural forms in ways that seek to prefigure alternatives to the colonial social relations that continue to facilitate the dispossession of Indigenous lands and self-determining authority.

The rush for land has escalated the last decade, with Sub-Saharan Africa as the most targeted region. Governments, local elites and foreign corporations are increasingly taking control over large areas of agricultural lands with the aim of creating higher financial returns and achieve food security. This phenomenon, known as land grabbing, has received a lot of attention worldwide, not least from non-governmental organizations and scholars stressing the negative impacts on rural farmers and families. Yet, several international organizations as well as many African governments keep advocating the positive effects that land grabbing can have on poverty reduction and economic growth. The dominating capitalist and neoliberal view on development, focusing largely on the economic part, undermines the social and environmental impacts that these investments bring. The purpose of this comparative study is therefore to examine, analyze and compare these impacts in Ghana and Ethiopia, two countries heavily affected by land grabbing. This is done through the lens of political ecology, where concepts such as environmental justice, accumulation by dispossession and sustainable rural livelihoods will be of particular significance. Based on a systematic literature review, the results show that land grabbing projects, said to aim at stimulating economic and social development, have resulted in dispossessions, injustices and environmental conflicts wherein indigenous communities have been deeply affected. Their traditional livelihoods, based mainly on cultivation, fishing, gathering and hunting, have been threatened by several impacts from the land grabs. These include loss of land, declined access to resources, damaged ecosystems, deforestation and lack of alternative ways to maintain food security.

Until the 1970s, small black fishing communities primarily populated Bahia’s north coast. A recent demand for luxury coastal real estate has radically altered the region’s social and environmental landscape. While Bahia’s population is roughly 80% poor and black, the coast is now a space of exclusivity and whiteness. Sewage infrastructure does not meet the needs of the growing population. Domestic sewage flows directly into urban rivers. Poor black fishers, whose food security and livelihoods depend on access to healthy water resources, suffer most in this context. This dissertation explores two interlinking forms of environmental racism – water pollution and racial profiling – that fishers in Praia de Buraquinho, Bahia, Brazil, experience daily. Based on fourteen months of ethnographic research, this project follows the lives of 75 fishers enmeshed in a struggle for environmental and racial justice. I uncover how coastal development has polluted the community's primary river fishery while private gated communities physically restrict fishers' access and subject them to racial profiling practices by private security guards. Ultimately, I argue that regional coastal development in Bahia represents a new model of capital accumulation through what I call “racialized environmental dispossession” that, as one Praia de Buraquinho fishers suggests, is "like watching a brother die."

This thesis examines land reclamation as an increasingly significant form of land grabbing and control. Its focus is coastal reclamation in south Bali, Indonesia, particularly in and near the culturally, economically, and ecologically important Benoa Bay. Like elsewhere in Asia and around the world, the remaking of landscapes and seascapes in Indonesia through reclamation has numerous, interconnected material, ecological, and social impacts. In south Bali, coral, mangrove, and seagrass meadows have been degraded, fishers’ livelihoods decimated, and communities’ spiritual and other connections to place disrupted. Benoa is a particularly productive case to analyze, as there have been instances of both historical and recent reclamation projects, as well as a proposed mega-project that has successfully been resisted for nearly a decade. The thesis seeks to make multiple contributions in analyzing reclamation, primarily in Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia. First, despite its quickening pace and widening extent, there is a need for greater empirical attention to reclamation’s spatiality and its entwined social, ecological, and material effects. This case study is attentive to the historical and conjunctural specificities of Bali (including the tourist-centric economy that provides capital with unique imaginaries and circulations for a spatial fix and the Balinese-Hinduism that subtends legal pluralism), but also attempts to trace trends and dynamics of reclamation more widely. Second, examining reclamation as an assemblage enables us to better understand its political economy, by identifying the many financial, technological, legal, discursive and other elements that must be made to cohere. Analyzing cases of resistance, or other failures to cohere, reveal potential weak seams and chokepoints in reclamation’s assemblage. Third, analysis of reclamation enables us to see reclaimed land as “manufactured,” and different not just theoretically from emplaced land, but distinct in its behaviors. Manufactured land behaves like a true (not pseudo) commodity. Seeing land in a commodity chain further reveals its political economy as well as opportunities to disrupt its manufacture.

In 1991, India adopted neoliberalism, a system of political economic practices that promotes private property and free trade, as its political and economic system to promote development in their country. India's neoliberal reform has created issues surrounding human development, resource accumulation, and power struggles. Eleven years later, in 2002, Bt cotton was introduced to the Indian agricultural sector. This research examines how the genetically modified organism Bt cotton is being used to commodify nature in the context of agriculture under neoliberalism. The research focuses on the dispossession of the rural farmers through the commodification of agriculture using Bt cotton. Dispossession of the rural farmers happen through the implications that arise from the commodification of nature. Through Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, this research analyzes accumulation by dispossession and how it neglects the working class and its struggle in rural India. Through this examination, the research will argue alternatives to the dispossession of the working class and the commodification of nature through Bt cotton. Dispossession, in this research, is examined both through working class, but also through the dispossession of biodiversity. Through the loss of biodiversity, the rural farmers are becoming dispossessed from a more sustainable environment. Along with these goals, the research will also incorporate themes of food security through changing landscape of agriculture due to the incorporation of Bt cotton. This research argues the contradictions that are presented through the commodification of agriculture under neoliberalism and provide a contribution to social justice literature, and our understanding of the relationship between technology and the commodification of nature.

The theoretical framework of accumulation by dispossession allows for a critical examination of urban development projects within neoliberalism (Harvey, 2009; Swyngedouw, Moulaert & Rodriguez, 2002). Within the same neoliberal paradigm, sports mega-events have come to play a significant role for urban regeneration and policy-making (Hall, 2006). Meanwhile attending to the well-documented cases of mass-evictions and reduction of standard housing rights as a recurrent consequence of cities hosting such events (Blunden, 2012), we believe that such a critical examination is arguably important in order to do justice to these kinds of urban regeneration projects. In this paper we analyse, by a case study approach, how mega-events amplify and accelerate the process of accumulation by dispossession. We attend to the development of the Olympic Park and Olympic Village, Barra da Tijuca, in preparation for the Rio 2016 Games, as well as the neighbouring community of Vila Autódromo. By analysing different types of source material, we discuss how the mechanisms of privatisation and entrepreneurialism are reflected in our case; understood as two important mechanisms that facilitate the process of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2009).