5c. Land grabbing

Question 1

Land rush. Spectacular competition to take control of land

Answer 1

Borras & Franco (2024)

Question 2

Case study: manufacturing consent for mining in L America (accumulation through destabilisation)
* Mining companies deploying payments and regalitos which destabilised important norms of reciprocity and the commons
* E.g. families selling lands traditionally used for communal grazing in exchange for payments/livestock, fuelling resentment
* Industrial mining has not only degraded physical landscapes, but social dynamics are leveraged to enable land grabbing
* On the one hand, IP have retained strong social ties to land and tradiiton; on the other, they have engaged in economic activities that have severed these ties
* Mining companies have exploited the paradox of offering a sense of familiarity that invokes a sense of obligation

Answer 2

Johnson et al (2023)

Question 3

‘Green grabbing’ - the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends, such as biocarbon sequestration
A key discursive turn towards conceptualising nature as valued for its economic abilities
Often building on histories of colonial resource extraction but also involving novel forms of valuation, commodification and markets, and a new range of actors and alliances.
Need to pay attention to history- and place-specific processes and to emerging material, discursive and economic orders.

Answer 3

Fairhead et al (2012)

Green grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?