Week 6: commons grabbing and collective reactions

Question 1

What is the defition of commons grabbing?

Answer 1

Dispossession of land, traditionally governed by indigenous or local collective systems.

Question 2

What are the three dimensions, referred to in the article, that are used to define commons grabbing ?

Answer 2

1: System of production: (subsitence= commons, commerical = not commons)
2: Coercion (high= commons, low=not commons)
3: Land claims: (mutliple = commons, unambigous = not commons)

Question 3

What are the two institutionally hybrid property regimes often found when it comes to commons grabbing ?

Answer 3

De facto: governance by communities through traditional, customary systems.
De jure: property rights held by the state or corporations.

Question 4

What were the 4 steps in identifying commons grabbing in the article by Dell’Angelo, J., Navas, G., Witteman, M., D’Alisa, G., Scheidel, A., & Temper, L. (2021). Commons grabbing and agribusiness: Violence, resistance and social mobilization.

Answer 4

1: Screening for Agribusiness-related conflicts: (EJAtlas), land aquisition conflicts with commodities = palm oil, sugar, soybean, timber
2: Qualitative review: if there was coercion, displacement or changes in communal governance system
3: Filtering: cases were excluded if unrelated to agribusiness or lacked evidence of land-use transitions and coercive practices.
>185 cases were found

Question 5

Give a key example of commons grabbing:

Answer 5

Ethiopia:
Land previously governed: communal, by pastoralists
**Land grabbing: ** was leased to a Saudi Arabian investment fund for 50–100 years.
**Consequences: ** deforestation, the land was converted to monocrop agriculture, and grains produced were exported.
Local communities were displaced
= substitence to commercial production paired with coercion

Question 6

Who most commonly mobiliyes against commons grabbing?

Answer 6

• Local and invernational Environmental Justice Organizations (EJOs)
• Farmers, indigenous groups
  etc

Question 7

When does the mobilization occur?

Answer 7

Predominantely it is reactive (after the grabbing has began), some is preventive.

Question 8

What forms of resistance occur predominately ?

Answer 8

• Lawsuits, strikes, petitions (peaceful, predominantely)
• ## Confrontational (land occupation, property damage, example: via campesina destroying seedlings of eucalyptus plantation in Rio Grande do Sul in Brasil)

Question 9

What are the outcomes?

Answer 9

High levels of violent repression.
Few legislative policy changes

Question 10

What role do collective actions play in defending commons?

Answer 10

• local movements + transantional networks (NGOS, UN agencies) are critical for defending commons
• Resistance highlights systematic exclusion from de decision-making processes