Filling the Gaps: What Terra Nullius Really Looks Like

By: Jo Jinho

Empty land is a funny thing. The Europeans considered North America empty when they first arrived. This, we know, was surely not true. But nevertheless Terra Nullius – Latin for empty land – provided the Europeans a philosophical and moral justification on which to base colonization of the new world (Asch 2002). Jump ahead to today and the line that land is simply empty remains, legitimizing purchases of vast tracts of land in far distant, mostly African, countries by contemporary governments, transnational corporations, and hedge funds (GRAIN, 2009). This latter trend, often labeled land grabbing, is alike to past colonization except it succeeds under a different flag, that of global capital. The "empty" land being acquired today by agribusiness and financial speculators is just as "empty" as the Americas were at the time of Europe’s arrival: it's not! In cases of modern land grabbing the structured, but perhaps informal, agreements with which local communities establish the land’s use is disregarded and the land subsequently bought up. In such cases what is often considered empty land is rather just land not subsumed by formal regimes of private property.

This absurd arrangement of ‘empty land’ has continued for too long, and it is important that Terra Nullius be considered from a different perspective. A perspective that understands ‘empty land’ as a concept only existing in the condition of private property, rather than in its absence. From this perspective the function of space in today's society can be better reflected, and for what purpose and for whom the function of space currently serves is more clearly seen. Only when land is enclosed, taken away from the public, can land sit idle and truly empty. Certainly not all private property is empty – but much of it is. In places, for example, where a fence demarcates a plot of land and the plot is protected by the state, but the land just sits there literally unused. The land in these circumstances is unused by its owner, except perhaps as a financial asset (as an artifact) but more crucially it is rendered useless by society because any value to be cultivated by the community is disallowed. This is urban actually empty land.

In so many places do plots exist as nothing but a place for garbage and trespassing because the monetary incentive for the land to stand idle acts contrary to its development. This takes away so much from the potential of the community. It takes away from the land’s potential to act as a place to gather or reap, affirming it only a blemish on the face of society. This land must be converted, and more must land in such circumstances inside urban space be recognized as empty. If not, and local space is wasted then urban hubs continue to expand into their surrounding areas that once served to grow food. Worse yet, land will continue to be snatched up abroad, and on a deceitful premise, to make up for the land nearby already devoured. Moreover does land grabbing abroad displace people and just force more into ill-established urban space, only deepening a cycle.

But for urban space to reach its potential, and provide as a place to exist going forward, the gaps must be filled in. Importantly, it must be acknowledged that food can indeed be grown within the confines of urban space, and to an extent that it can contribute to local needs. This is to forgo a perceived obligation to expand the urban outwards. For this, incentives must be demanded so new forms of space relations can take place. It is true that space is constantly being reinvented, but this must happen in a way that the urban empty is conceived and urban empty plots fashioned to be interconnected with the surrounding community.

References:

Asch, Michael (2002) From Terra Nullius to Affirrmation: Reconciling Aboriginal Rights with the Canadian Constitution Canadian Journal of Law and society Vol 17 (2)

GRAIN (2009) www.grain.org