Space between fences: farmland property and agroecological transformation in Aotearoa New Zealand: farmland property and agroecological transformation in Aotearoa New Zealand
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In Aotearoa New Zealand, industrial agriculture is driving climate change, undermining ecosystem integrity and social wellbeing. Agroecology has been proposed as a transformative paradigm through which this destructive food and farming system can be transformed, centring ecological, economic and social sustainability. Yet scholarship in this area tends to overlook a key element shaping the possibilities for transformation: property relations. This thesis thus explores the relationship between property and agroecological transformation in the Global North—and in Aotearoa New Zealand in particular—in order to address this gap and provide tools for agroecological scholars and activists to better engage with property as a key pillar of transformation. Drawing on legal geography and critical property theory to inform an interdisciplinary mixed-method study encompassing text and legal analysis and semi- structured interviews, I explore whether ownership is consistent with agroecological transformations, the engagement of agroecological scholarship and civil society discourse with property as a key problematic, and two different possibilities for contesting and transforming property relations: collective tenure models and Indigenous-led, land-based direct action. Taking a critical social relational and performative view of property, I argue that the ownership model of property undermines the realisation of a systemic agroecological transformation. I demonstrate that prominent theories of agroecological change frequently overlook property, limiting their ability to adequately grapple with barriers to transformation. I further show that this limited engagement is evident in the discourse of civil society actors, and that this can be understood in terms of the maintenance and reproduction of the hegemony of ownership. Finally, I find that while existing collective tenure models and those involved with them ultimately reproduce ownership, more confrontational Indigenous-led struggles which demand justice and enact alternative property relations beyond the limits of state-authorised legitimacy have the potential to move beyond ownership. Together, these findings suggest a need for agroecological movements and scholarship within and beyond Aotearoa New Zealand to engage with property relations as a key site of struggle, rather than an object over which to struggle. They further suggest a need to take seriously the hegemonic force of the ownership model and to seek change through transformation rather than reform.
DOI: 10.7488/era/7801
Author: Oldham-Dorrington, Olivia Marie
Language: English
Subfield: Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214915561