Collective Land Titling: Formalization of Customary Regimes or Redistribution of Land Ownership for Afro Colombian Communities

This paper focuses on the first collective titles of 1996 and 1997. It interrogates Collective Land Titling (CLT) processes and examines the differences between the actors that participated in them. It argues that communities' narratives around their achievement did not conform to those of the other actors involved in granting the collective titles received in 1996 and 1997 or with the characterization of CLT processes as successful land reform. CLT functioned as a policy to recognize black communities' historical presence in the Pacific region and their informal land ownership regimes in lands historically marginalized by the Colombian state.