Humans are Made of Mud: the Genealogy of Farmland Legal Protection in Religious Traditions

This article explores the sacred origins of the legal protection of farmland, seeking to illuminate the rituals and beliefs that have historically shaped human relationships with land and, more specifically, agricultural land. Methodologically, the paper combines legal analysis with historical and religious-cognitive approaches. This method reveals how rules governing farmland protection can generate enduring ways of conceptualizing land, cultivation, community, and law. By situating land within ontological and religious frameworks, the article also seeks to explain the intensity of land-based conflicts, which often resist purely rational or economic explanations. Ultimately, the research aims to foster an interinstitutional dialogue that recognizes agricultural land not only through the modern liberal category of a “legal good,” but also as a genuine “social resource” deeply embedded in, and constitutive of, the communities that confer value upon it.