...but wait! Theres more. (From David Correia, Properties of Violence: Law and Land Grant Struggle in Northern New Mexico, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013.) This is how Properties of Violence ends: with David Correia bouncing along a mountain track in an all-terrain vehicle driven by Cuban cigar-chomping, beer-swilling, ex-Olympic speed skater, current Atlanta Braves executive, and land developer Mike Plant, touring northern New Mexico luxury home sites that sell for up to three-quarters of a million dollars. Plant is hoping to turn a big chunk of Mundy Ranch into a mountain retreat for the super-wealthy, who will come there for the stunning views, as well as to hike and especially to hunt. They’ll hunt on ranchland that Plant will hold in trust as a commons of sorts, open to residents who buy a lot and build a second (or third, or fourth) home. For his part, Jim Mundy, the son of Bill Mundy who carved the massive Mundy Ranch out of the even more massive Tierra Amarilla land grant, and through a series of legal maneuvers and vigilantism eventually cleared title to it – quieted the deed, to use the term of art that is so central to Correia’s brilliant book – hopes to sell his remaining portion of the ranch to the Jacarilla Apaches who would then hand it over to the U.S. Government in the form of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which in turn would hold it in trust for the Jacarillas to use in common. If the purchase goes through it will add to several others the Jacarillas have recently made on the Tierra Amarilla land grant, which has greatly expanded the tribe’s reservation – and its access to wealth in the form of land, minerals, animals, and timber. As Correia makes clear – and has made clear over the course of this excellent book – this outcome (Plant setting aside a massive commons for his wealthy vacationers; the U.S. government holding land in trust, as a commons, for the Jacarillas) is deeply ironic. radicalantipode.files.wordpress/2013/06/book-review_mitchell-on-correia.pdf
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 16:09:35 +0000
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