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Carleton University is located in Ottawa, Ontario.

Barbuda Land Acts

The Barbuda Land Act of 2007 enshrines the long-standing belief that citizens equally own the land. They must also provide consent for major development projects on the island. The Government of Antigua and Barbuda passed the act on January 17, 2008.

Details of the Act

The act states that all people in Barbuda own the land collectively. Any citizen over 18 years old has the right to occupy residential land, graze animals and use land for commercial purposes, as long as projects are not considered major developments. Major developments, in this act, are defined as anything that costs over $5.4 million. The act also gives citizens the ability to voice their support or their discontent for development on the island. The majority of citizens must support a major development project in order for a land lease to be granted. The Council and Cabinet must approve development projects as well.

In 2016, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda amended the 2007 act in order to change the value of major developments from $5.4 million to $40 million. Moving forward, development projects worth less than $40 million are not subject to a vote from citizens.

Communal Land History

Since British occupation, the community-driven relationship with the land has been maintained through a communal land tenure system. Traditional, open cattle grazing methods faired better than the enclosed, private pastural methods typically used by colonial regimes. British colonizers attempted to transform Barbuda into a large-scale agricultural and plantation economy, but the island's dry weather patterns made this very difficult. In 1904, the British Parliament granted Barbudans with crown tenant status, signifying they had a sense of ownership of the land, even before independence. In 1969, Barbuda reached statehood and occupants recognized themselves as co-owners of the land. Barbudan citizens continued to see the land as their own, even as the islands of Antigua and Barbuda integrated into one nation in 1981.

However, residents are beginning to stray away from communal agricultural methods. Demand is diminishing for Barbudan beef, as Antigua (its main export market) imports greater amounts of foreign beef. Barbudan citizens are consuming more foreign beef than their own. There is also growing discontent to choose herding as an occupation, as younger generations are looking for more profitable opportunities off from the island.

Recent Developments

Actor Robert De Niro and billionaire James Packer purchased a resort on the island in 2015. The duo will renovate the former K Club resort for a projected US$250 million. Residents voted on the proposed venture in March, 2015. 206 people voted in favour of the project, outscoring the 175 who contested the development. According to the Antigua Observer, some voters did not think the voting process was fair because there was no system in place to ensure all voters were citizens and that people only voted once. These same people also claim the vote was not anonymous. Before the vote, the government chairman of the event expressed his support for foreign investment to voters. He spoke about potential jobs opportunities the resort would bring to the area. While there was some discontent in the crowd, the room after the vote was filled with loud cheers of approval.

The current Prime Minister of Barbuda and Antigua, Gaston Browne, is a large advocate for external development projects, believing that a strong, developed economy is beneficial to residents. He does not think that Barbudan citizens collectively own the land.

Hurricane Irma destroyed 90 per cent of the island and left a majority of the island's population homeless. The event brought attention to the issue of land ownership on the island. Prime Minister Browne wants citizens to purchase their current plots of land for $1. In return, land owners would receive deeds exchangeable for bank loans. These loans are needed in order to re-build homes destroyed during the hurricane. Browne says this proposed measure is meant to be an act of empowerment because citizens will finally own their land.

Trevor Walker, former member of council, says that this is not a plan to empower citizens, but a way to steal from residents who already have land rights enshrined by law.

Finalizing Topic and Finding Sources

I have chosen to do my final assignment on Barbuda's Land Acts. I think it offers me a good analysis of how communal land structures still managed to exist in Barbuda during colonial rule. I hope to have the following sections in my article:

1. An overview of what the communal system looks like
2. How farming systems faired under colonial rule
3. Effects on land systems post-colonialism
4. Government's current stance on land acts

If it is possible, I would like to incorporate images or maps of the farming systems in Barbuda.

I will be posting my bibliography and suggestions in the articles Talk, Subpage. I have not created the actual Wikipedia page yet, as I would like to have a portion of the article drafted and ready to put in at the article's inception. (In order to create a bibliography, I have to insert individual citations here:

Notes

(Please disregard the last citation, I was unable to take this off because it is citing information for my Potential Topics portion of my assignment)

Choosing Possible Topics

Potential Topics

The following are three topics that I am considering for my final Wikipedia project. I have linked (when possible) the current articles that I hope to contribute to. I have also described the proposed changes I am considering.

Barbuda Land Acts: There is not a current Wikipedia page looking at the acts that determine how land is used in Barbuda. There are indications that the current government of Barbuda is trying to move away from its current communal ownership system to a privatized, tenure structure. Despite its colonial history, Barbuda's communal land plots were able to sustain pressures of English colonization (during and after the 1600s) to continue grazing their livestock.I hope to explore the history of land acts in Barbuda and add information about more recent developments on land ownership and movements towards privatization in the country.

Romance tours: There is a current page on romance tours, however in the Talk page, I discovered that it has a Stub-Class rating. This means that it is too basic and needs additional information. If I chose this as a topic, I hope to add a larger section about its connections to the mail-order bride business. I also believe that the article does not have enough viewpoints represented that critique the practice. I found a dissertation that notes romance tours are a result of racialized, colonized and sexualized identities. If a dissertation is not an appropriate reference, I can always check out the sources listed in the reference section of the article. I also did some general searches on the term and believe there is enough reliable information that can be used on this topic.

Treaty of Fez: Last, I think there could be potential to add more to the Treaty of Fez article that I've done some of my small Wikipedia tasks on. It is a relatively short article to begin with, but I think it could use some contexualition in order to help the reader get a full picture of the treaty's effect on Morocco. I think it would be important to add more citations and expand on nationalist movements that followed the enactment of the treaty. Furthermore, I think actually looking through the Treaty of Fez and giving more detail on the relevant articles within it would be an important addition to the page.

At this point, I think all of my options have a strong connection to colonialism or post colonialism (in some cases both) and would allow me to find reputable research, both online and in print.

Article Evaluation

I will be evaluating the Treaty of Fez Wikipedia article. Upon first inspection, most sentences are structured in a complex and confusing manner. The editor uses language that is too scholarly and unknown to the everyday reader. Terminology like "spheres of influence" and "abdicated" do not give simple descriptions of the subject. Furthermore, I think it would be beneficial to shorten the length of the sentences and take away any confusing sentence structures.

Not only is this article hard to read, but it omits information about the Treaty of Fez. The author briefly notes the nationalist uproar that occurred after the French and Spanish agreements with Morocco leaders, but it does not describe the 1956 nationalist revolution that was clearly a reaction to the treaty. Failing to include these nationalist perspectives is a very large abstraction from the fallout of treaties like this. In class, it has been stressed that using a bottom-up approach must accompany traditional histories that have been reproduced by scholars who are from colonizing powers. I think it is appropriate to include the stories of revolution in the article because the Treaty of Fez is clearly one of the causal factors of Moroccan independence movements.

I also think it would be beneficial to contextualize the event as well. It would be interesting to know if the Treaty of Fez was apart of a French strategy of gaining territory. Were other African countries losing their independence at this time? Did other countries also have nationalist movements? Even if these questions were addressed in a few, succinct sentences, I think it would make the article much better.

While the article does link to other Wikipedia articles about Moroccan history and important figures, it only has one citation to an external source. In this, it does not adequately cite the information it spouts and this is a serious problem. How can we know that what is says is accurate, if there are no reliable sources behind the facts? In fact, there is a warning at the beginning of the article that there are not adequate citations for the page.

Furthermore, the one article that is cited is plagiarized with the same sentence structure as the original source. Even worse, the last part of the sentence is a complete reproduction of the reference. This is a complete violation of Wikipedia's rules and should be changed. I was surprised that none of this was represented in the Talk page (it only states that the page is part of both a Morocco and France WikiProject). The talk page also says that the article is known as a "Start Class", which means that is incomplete. At least it is classified in this manner.

It would be interesting to have some more visuals on the page, if possible. Perhaps a map of the new territories made from the treaty could make it easier to imagine the geography.

Overall, I think the Treaty of Fez article is not biased but it does not adequately cover the entire topic and does not have enough (or even correct) citations.