International Journal of the Commons Vol. 8, no 1 February 2014, pp. 179–206 Publisher: Igitur publishing URL:http://www.thecommonsjournal.org URN:NBN:NL:UI:10-1-116086 Copyright: content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License ISSN: 1875-0281 Private and communal lands? The ramifications of tenure ambiguity and regional integration for tenure formalization and its consequences in northern Bolivia Stephen Perz Department of Sociology, University of Florida, USA sperz@ufl.edu Grenville Barnes School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, USA gbarnes@ufl.edu Alexander Shenkin School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, USA ashenkin@ufl.edu Daniel Rojas Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Bolivia darcbp@hotmail.com Carlos Vaca Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Bolivia carva80@hotmail.com Abstract: Major integration initiatives such as large-scale infrastructure projects are moving forward in Latin America, creating the conditions theorized by the ‘evolutionary theory of land rights’ (ETLR) for the shift from communal to private individual tenure. This however assumes a clear distinction between communal and private individual tenure that avoids ambiguities such as those arising from contrasts between de jure tenure rights and de facto practices. We take up these issues by focusing on northern Bolivia, an ambiguous case because groups of families with individual land claims recently received communal titles as ‘independent communities’. This has occurred in areas near a major market