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"Conflict over land,
and the right to use it,
is as old as community
.
Yet
in
recent years, in the
face of
the global financial
crisis and
growing
food & energy security concerns,
global
attention to land conflicts triggered by
‘land grabbing’ has increased.
Land grabbing stresses
the in
-equitability of land tenure change that occur within a nation, but in
conjunction
with
national, regional and international actors.
In Myanmar a
growing number of
these cases
have
been recorded
.
One notable and evidently
news
-worthy example
is that of the Letpadaung
copper mine
2
expansion project
, which
has been behind a series of land grabs that have led to
nationwide protests.
In a nation where around a third of the population lives below the
poverty line
3
, and 70% are dependent on the agricultural sector for their livelihoods, issues of
land and the right to it are essential.
This
paper explores
discourses surrounding the copper mine expansion project’s land
grabs and related protests
as
produced
by
the
national and international
media
4
.
In other
words
,
it analyzes
how media has chosen to
give weight
to
certain themes related to this case
of land grabbing over time
and
then
contextualizes
the results--"
I did not do anything, just cut and paste, but it became poetry, so leaving as is.
kmk
