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Native and Migrant Land Conflicts: Justifying Migration and Explaining Radicalization in a World of State “Boxes”

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Abstract

Artificial borders and boundaries form a map that reinforces divisions between people. Justifications for these divisions are usually based on history, the outcomes of conflict, ethnicity, narrative myths, and nativity. This chapter evaluates these—and other—justifications for land ownership with two main questions in mind. First, “Who Owns Land?” In other words, what normative justifications for land ownership are valid and which are not? Second, “What Justifies Keeping People Out?” In other words, do reasons of nativity, security, coherence, ethnicity, and so on justify keeping migrants, refugees and others out of certain lands? Case study analysis of land claims made in Israel-Palestine will be employed to further explore the topic. In the end, it will be argued that nations and nationalism and their concomitant justifications for ownership and exclusion are the great barriers to a more just land distribution and system of human migration.

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Notes

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Rubin, G. (2021). Native and Migrant Land Conflicts: Justifying Migration and Explaining Radicalization in a World of State “Boxes”. In: Migration and Radicalization. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69399-2_3

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