Thanks in part to the CLACLS summer travel fellowship in 2015, I traveled to Colombia to conduct preliminary fieldwork towards my dissertation, which examines the intertwined processes of state formation and agribusiness expansion in the Colombian-Venezuelan Llanos. In particular, I analyze different disputes over the conception, use and property of state lands (from baldíos to specific state-owned landholdings). Hence, during that summer I focused on exploring public debates over the making and allocation of specific state-owned lands from 2005 to 2015. I spent three months between the cities of Bogotá, Villavicencio, and Puerto Gaitán, where I was able to gather data coming mainly from regional and local newspapers to state institutions’ and NGOs’ archives.