ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which the changes occur through local social and political structures and a specific environmental context. It describes the context of land conversion in terms of local social and political relations between landowners, developers, tenant farmers, and politicians. The chapter provides some evidence of the locally embedded nature of globalization as a material process inscribed upon the landscape of Cavite. It examines the broader process of land conversion in Cavite and suggests that it is significantly more widespread that official national figures suggest. The chapter explains historical development and socioeconomic characteristics of Mulawin, highlighting its very different social and economic composition from the village of Bunga. In Bunga, the physical landscape of a rural village remains essentially intact. The chapter analyses some of the areas of environmental incompatibility between urban and agricultural land uses and the consequent problems facing farmers - problems that add to the already immense pressures to sell their tenancy rights.
