Panel Commentaries

policyengagementdescripCommentaries on each of the panel sessions were provided by participants and are linked below.

Panel 1 – LIVELIHOODS: Land Rights (Convening Space)

Chair: Paul Mathieu, FAO, Rome

  • Liz Alden Wily, Political Economist and Land Tenure Specialist, independent researcher, Nothing new under the sun or a new battle joined? The political economy of African dispossession in the current global land rush
  • Robin Palmer (Mokoro, Oxford). Would Cecil Rhodes have signed a Code of Conduct? Reflections on global land grabbing and land rights?
  • Suraya Afiff, University of Indonesia, Jacqueline Vel, Leiden University and John McCarthy, Australian National University, A Land Grab Scenario for Indonesia? Diverse Trajectories and Virtual Land Grabs in the Outer Islands
  • Derek Hall, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, Land Control, Land Grabs, and Southeast Asian Crop Booms
Panel 2 – ENVIRONMENT: Carbon Grabs (SC1/2)
Chair: Melissa Leach, IDS Sussex

  • Thomas Sikor, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Global enclosures? Exploring the dynamics of forest-based climate mitigation
  • Melissa Leach, Institute for Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Land grabs for biochar? Narratives and counter-narratives in Africa’s emerging biogenic carbon sequestration economy
  • Tor A. Benjaminsen and Ian Bryceson, Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Conservation as land grabbing in Tanzania” (REDD and implications)
  • Catherine Corson, Program in Environmental Studies, Mount Holyoke College, USA, Madagascar, protected areas
Panel 3 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Enclaves and Corridors (SC3/4)
Chair: Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

  • Randi Kaarhus, Associate Professor, Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), UMB – Norwegian University of Life Sciences: Agricultural Development Corridors equals Land-grabbing? Models, roles and accountabilities in a Mozambican case
  • Michael Levien, University of California at Berkeley, The Land Question: Special Economic Zones and the Political Economy of Dispossession in India
  • Rawat, V.B., Bhushan, M.B., Surepally, S., Special Economic Zones in India with particular reference to land acquisition in Polepally, Andhra Pradesh
Panel 4 – GOVERNANCE: Codes of Conduct/Roundtables (221)

Chair: Elizabeth Fortin, University of Bristol,UK

  • Elizabeth Fortin, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Bristol, Multi-stakeholder initiatives to regulate biofuels: the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels
  • Mateo Mier y Teran, Dphil student, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, Strengths and limitations of the Round Table for Responsible Soy – RTRS in Mato Grosso, Brazil
  • Laura Silva Castañeda, PhD Student, Laboratoire d’études du développement, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Certification systems and land conflicts: the case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Panel 5 – POLITICS: Conflict and Violence

Chair: Jeff Boyer, Appalachia State University, North Carolina,USA

  • Jefferson Boyer, Anthropology Department, Appalachian State University and Wilfredo Cardona Peñalva, Agricultural economist, former director of Honduras’s rural sustainable development research office, Ministry of Agriculture & Cattle Ranching, Land Grabbing in Pre- and Post-Coup Honduras
  • Samuel B. Mabikke, PhD Student at the Centre of Land, Water and Environmental Risk Management, Technische Universität München, Escalating land grabbing in post-conflict regionsof Northern Uganda: A Need for Strengthening Land Governance in Acholi Region
  • Markus Zander, Poptún, Petén, Guatemala, DED in cooperation with the Pastoral Social del Vicariato Apostólico de Petén and Jochen Dürr, working DED with IDEAR/CONGCOOP in Guatemala, Dynamics of change in land tenure, local power and the peasant economy: the case of Petén, Guatemala
  • Megan Ybarra, Assistant Professor, Politics Department, Willamette University, Taming the Jungle, Saving the Maya Forest: The Military’s Role in Guatemalan Conservation

15.30 Tea/coffee

16.00 Panels session 2 (panels 6-10)

Panel 6 – LIVELIHOODS: Gender (Convening Space)

Chair: Ruth Meinzen-Dick, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

  • Ruth Meinzen-Dick (IFPRI), Julia Behrman (IFPRI), Agnes Quisumbing (IFPRI), The Gender Implications of Large Scale Land Deals
  •  Diana Fletschner, Kelsey Jones-Casey, and Florence Santos, Rural Development Institute, Rural Women and Land Conversions in China
  • Patience Mutopo, PhD Candidate, Cologne Centre for African Studies, University of Cologne, Germany, Gendered Realities: Bio fuel Production and the Politics of displacement after Land Reform in Mwenezi District, Zimbabwe
  • Julia, WALHI/Dayakology Institute, Indonesia and Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Expropriation and incorporation: gendered politics of oil palm expansion in a Dayak Hibun community in West Kalimantan
Panel 7 – ENVIRONMENT: Constructing Marginal Lands (221)

Chair: Saturnino M. (‘Jun’) Borras Jr. International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

  • Saturnino M. Borras Jr., ISS (The Hague), Danilo Carranza (Rightsnet, Philippines), Jennifer C. Franco (Transnational Institute, Amsterdam) and Maria Lisa Alano (AFRIM, Philippines), Land grabbing and the contested notion of marginal lands: Insights from the Philippines
  • Rachel Nalepa, PhD student, Department of Geography and Environment, Boston University, USA, A question of scale: the construction of marginal lands and the limitations of global land classifications
  • Gustavo de L. T. Oliveira, PhD Student, Geography Department, University of California at Berkeley, Land regularization in Brazil and the global land grab: a state-making framework for analysis
  • Fouad Makki, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University and Charles Geisler, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, Development by Dispossession: Land Grabbing as New Enclosures in Contemporary Ethiopia
Panel 8 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Estates and Outgrowers (220)

Chair: Kojo Amanor, University of Ghana

  • Claude Fortin, graduate student, Saint Mary’s University, Canada, The Biofuel Boom and Indonesia’s Oil Palm Industry: The Twin Processes of Peasant Dispossession and Adverse Incorporation in West Kalimantan
  •  Mark Maughan, graduated from University of Cambridge, Land grab and oil palm in Colombia
  •  Dzodzi Tsikata and Joseph Yaro, ISSER, University of Ghana, Land Market Liberalization and Trans-National Commercial Land Deals In Ghana Since The 1990s
Panel 9 – GOVERNANCE: Human Rights (SC3/4)

Chair: Sofia Monsalve, Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN)

  • Alison Graham, Sylvain Aubry, Rolf Künnemann and Sofia Monsalve Suárez, FIAN, Advancing African Agriculture (AAA): The Impact of Europe’s Policies and Practices on African Agriculture and Food Security – from human rights perspective
  •  David K. Deng, Andrea Johansson and Smita Narula, New York University (NYU), USA Foreign Land Deals and Human Rights. Cases Studies on Agricultural and Biofuels Investment
  •  Roman Herre, Fooffirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) German section and Saturnino M. Borras Jr., International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), A human rights perspective on land grabbing: the case of Cambodia
Panel 10 – POLITICS: Commodification, conflicts and dispossession: interactions between the global and the local (SC1/2)
Chair: Marja Spierenberg, VU Amsterdam

  • An Ansoms, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, The ‘bitter fruit’ of a new agrarian model: Large-scale land deals and local livelihoods in Rwanda
  •  Willem Odendaal, Legal Assistance Centre, Namibia, Land grabbing in Namibia
  •  Maru Shete, School of Graduate Studies, St. Mary’s University College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Implications of land deals to livelihood security and natural resource management in Benshanguel Gumuz regional state, Ethiopia
  • Melanie Sommerville, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada, The Global Land Grab and Marginalization in Canada: the Case of One Earth Farms

17.30 Drinks reception and open space session, video and publications display (IDS Common Room)

19.00 Dinner, hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium (IDS, Room 120)

21:30 Buses to Brighton depart

Thursday 7 April

9.00 Panel session: Framing the debate (chair: Ben White, ISS)

  • Ruth Meinzen-Dick, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
  • Mike Taylor, International Land Coalition
  • Laura German, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
  • Eric Holt-Gimenez, Food First
  • Camilla Toulmin, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

A panel discussion and plenary debate on the ways that the ‘land grab’ debate has been framed, reflecting on the findings of different research groups.

10.30 Tea/coffee

11.00 Panel session 3 (panels 11-15)

Panel 11 – LIVELIHOODS: Livelihoods and Dispossession (220)
Chair: Tania Li, University of Toronto

  • Household Livelihoods and Increasing Foreign Investment Pressure in Ethiopia’s Natural Forests
  • How come that others are selling our land?’ – Customary Land Rights, Rural Livelihoods and Foreign Land Acquisition in the Case of a UK-based Forestry Company in Tanzania
  • Marja Spierenburg, VU University Amsterdam Stuck between a Park and a Plantation the Privatization of Majete Wildlife Reserve in
  • Shelley Feldman and Charles Geisler, Development Sociology, Cornell University, Land Grabbing in Bangladesh Displacement of Peasant Holdings

Panel 12 – ENVIRONMENT: Green Grabs (221)
Chair: Wendy Wolford, Cornell University,USA

  • Maanda Ngoitiko, Kenyatta University and Benjamin Gardner, University of Washington, Community-based tourism in Tanzania: Dispossession or empowerment?
  • Kabiri Ngeta, University of Cape Town, South Africa, Wildlife Conservation and Land Acquisitions: A case study of the Tanzania and Kenya Land Conservation Trusts
  • Diana Ojeda, Clark University, USA, Whose Paradise? Conservation, tourism and land grabbing in Tayrona Natural Park, Colombia
  • Dianne Rocheleau, Geography and Global Environmental Studies, Clark University, USA and Rosaluz Perez, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico, Dispossession by Green Deceit

Panel 13 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Finance (SC1/2)
Chair: Stephen Spratt, IDS Sussex

  • Daniel Shepard, Oakland Institute, The role of the international finance corporation in promoting agricultural investment and large-scale land acquisitions
  • Davies, Graham, Altima Partners, Private Equity and African Agriculture: Commercial – Smallholder Hybrids
  • Hubert Cochetet, AgroParisTech, and M. Merlet, AGTER, Land grabbing and share of the added value in agricultural processes. A new look at distribution of land revenues
  • Sergio Sauer, University of Brasilia and Sergio Leite, Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Agrarian structure, foreign land ownership, and land price in Brazil

Panel 14 – GOVERNANCE: Legal Frameworks (Convening Space)
Chair: Liz Alden Wily

  • Adeline Carrier, CNRS, Paris, Economic Land Concessions: a Legal Framework to Legitimize Land Grabbing in Cambodia?
  • Lorenzo Cotula, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Legal frameworks for land deals in Africa: A political economy approach
  • Kyla Tienhaara, Australian National University and Wynet Smith, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Negotiating Carbon Concessions in Developing Countries: Issues of Capacity, Confidentiality & Corruption
  • Mahnaz Malik, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Foreign investment into agriculture: Investment Treaties and the ability of governments to balance rights and obligations between foreign investors and local communities.

Panel 15 – POLITICS: Local Elites (SC3/4)
Chair: Sandra Evers, VU Amsterdam

  • Colin Filer, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Australian National University, The New Land Grab In Papua New Guinea
  • J. A. Mope Simo, Catholic University of Central Africa, Cameroon, Land grabbing, governance and social peace-building issues in Cameroon: Case study of the roles of elites in land deals and commoditisation in the North West Region
  • O’Brien, E, in collaboration with The Kenyan Land Alliance, Local land grab practices scrutinized – the role of Kenya’s elite (tbc)
  • Madeleine Fairbairn, PhD candidate, Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, Indirect expropriation: The role of national politics and domestic elites in the Mozambican farmland grab

12.30 Lunch

14.00 Panel session 4 (panels 16-21)

Panel 16 – LIVELIHOODS: Transition countries (KNOTS)
Chair: Max Spoor, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

  • Oane Visser, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, and Max Spoor, ISS/Erasmus University, Netherlands, Land grabbing in the former Soviet Union: mechanisms and consequences
  • Oane Visser and Natasha Mamonova, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, Land deals in Russian agriculture: exploring various (il)legal strategies of large-scale land acquisition
  • Giuseppina Siciliano, University IUAV of Venice, Urbanisation strategies and agrarian change in Eastern China: a multilevel integrated assessment

Panel 17 – ENVIRONMENT: Mining (SC1/2)
Chair: Gavin Capps, University of Cape Town

  • Gavin Capps, University of Cape Town, South Africa, Investigating the Mining-Land-Chief Complex: The Case of the BaFokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine Development in South Africa’s North West Province
  • Dana Graef, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology & Environmental Studies, Yale University, Legacies of Transnational Mining and Hydropower in Defining Costa Rican Environmental Sovereignty
  • William Tsuma, PhD, Mining and Minerals Reforms In Ghana: Strategy to Legitimize Land Acquisitions and Grabbing in Mining Communities
  • Ye Jingzhong and Wang Chunyu, China Agricultural University, Beijing, Mining and Land in North China: politics and livelihoods

Panel 18 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Intra-regional Land Deals (Convening Space)
Chair: Dzodzi Tsikata, University of Ghana

  • Ruth Hall, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, The next Great Trek: South African commercial farmers move north
  • Joseph Ariyo and Michael Mortimore, Land deals and commercial agriculture in Nigeria
  • Lee Mackey, PhD candidate, Dep’t Urban Planning, School of Public Affairs, University of California-Los Angeles, Legitimating Foreignization in Bolivia: Technology and the Social Relations of Brazilian Landowning in Santa Cruz, Bolivia
  • Miles Kenney-Lazar, PhD Student, Clark University, Graduate School of Geography, Dispossession, semi-proletarianization, and enclosure: primitive accumulation and the land grab in Laos

Panel 19 – GOVERNANCE: Restructuring the state I
Chair: Wendy Wolford, Cornell University

  • Kojo Amanor, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Global land grabs, agribusiness and the commercial smallholder
  • Takeshi Ito, Colorado College, USA, Noer Fauzi Rachman, PhD student, Department of Environment Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, and Laksmi A. Savitri, Sajogyo Institute, Bogor, Indonesia, Naturalizing Land Dispossession: A Policy Discourse Analysis of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), Papua, Indonesia
  • Teo Ballvé, PhD Student, Geography Dept. University of California at Berkeley, USA, ‘Territory by Dispossession: Decentralization, Statehood, and the Narco Land-Grab in Colombia’

Panel 20 – POLITICS: Local Politics (220)
Chair: Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

  • Perrine Burnod, CIRAD and Andrianirina Ratsialonana Rivo, Malagasy Land Observatory, From International Land Deals to Local Informal Agreements: Regulations of and Reactions to Agricultural Investments in Madagascar
  • Tania Salerno, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, Peasants and transnational land deals in Mindanao, The Philippines
  • Thea Hilhorst, Royal Tropical Institute, Joost Nelen and Nata Traoré Thea, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, Agrarian change under the radar screen: Rising farmland acquisitions by domestic investors in West Africa -Results from a survey in Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger
  • Sandra Evers, VU University, Development’ as a Trojan Horse? Intermediality as Tool of Analysis of Foreign Large-scale Land Acquisitions in Developing Countries

Panel 21 – OVERVIEW: Evaluating options: opportunity or danger? (221)
Chair: Thomas Sikor, University of East Anglia

  • Elisa Da Vià, PhD Candidate,
  • Annelies Zoomers, University of Utrecht,The global land rush: The urgency of reframing the debate and ‘deepening’ the agenda
  • Alicia Harley, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Jon Hellin, CIMMYT,Evaluating land grab
  • Esteve Corbera, Katrina Brown and Neil Adger, University East Anglia, A resilience framework for ‘land grabbing’ research

15.30 Tea/coffee

16.00 Panel session: Policy roundtable: perspectives from multilateral/bilateral development institutions

Chair: Ian Scoones, Future Agricultures Consortium, IDS Sussex

  • Klaus Deininger, Lead Economist,Development Research Group, World Bank
  • Paul Mathieu, Senior Officer, Land Tenure Team, FAO, Rome
  • Jean-Philippe Audinet, Policy Division, IFAD
  • Albert Engel,Director, Division Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
  • Gregory Myers, Head, USAID Land Tenure Unit and Chair, FAO’s Working Group on the Voluntary Guidelines for Land Tenure
  • Iris Krebber, Security Advisor, Growth and Agriculture – Policy Division, UK Department for International Developm

Five minute presentations on agency positions and key issues, followed by facilitated question and answer session and plenary discussion.

17.30 Book fair: a series of book, report and special issue journal launches over drinks, plus poster and publication displays from different participating organisations.

18.00 – Room SC1/2: Book launch: of Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia, Singapore and Honolulu (by Derek Hall, Philip Hirsch and Tania Li) Singapore University Press and Hawaii University Press, 2011.

19.00 Bus to restaurant in Brighton departs.

19.30 Dinner in Brighton hosted by the Journal of Peasant Studies and the Future Agricultures Consortium.

Friday 8 April

9.00 Plenary panel: Perspectives from Social Movements and Civil Society (Convening Space)

Chair: Saturnino M. (‘Jun’) Borras Jr, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

  • Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South
  • Sofia Monsalve, FIAN International
  • Maryam Rahmanian, IPC for Food Sovereignty
  • Ibrahima Coulibaly, ROPPA (Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organisations of West Africa)
  • Yulian Junaidi, Via Campesina
  • Kate Geary, Advisor, Land and Private Sector, Oxfam

A moderated panel discussion on key challenges and responses from social movements and civil society, followed by a plenary debate.

10.30 Tea/coffee

11.00 Panel session 5 (panels 22-27)

Panel 22 – LIVELIHOODS: Pastoralism (KNOTS)
Chair: Jeremy Lind, IDS Sussex

  • Abdirizak Nunow, Moi University, The Dynamics of Land Deals in the Tana Delta, Kenya
  • John Letai, Oxfam GB in Kenya, The Genesis of Land deals in Kenya and its Implication for Pastoral Livelihoods – A Case Study of Laikipia District
  • Marcel Rutten, Africa Studies Centre, Leiden University, Selling Wealth to Buy Poverty: 20 years of Titling Experiences in Semi-Arid Kenya – Raising Security or a Sell Out to Foreign Onvestors?

Panel 23 – ENVIRONMENT: Water (221)
Chair: Tony Allan, SOAS, University of London

  • Phil Woodhouse, University of Manchester, Is Water the Hidden Agenda of Agricultural Land Acquisition in sub-Saharan Africa?
  • Martin Keulertz, Kings College, London, The New Geopolitics of Virtual Water in East Africa
  • Andrea Bues, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Agricultural Foreign Direct Investment and Water Rights – an institutional analysis from Ethiopia

Panel 24 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Partnerships and Business Models (SC1/2)
Chair: Edward Lahiff, University of Cork

  • Ward Answeeuw, CIRAD/University of Pretoria and Jean-Jacques Gabas, CIRAD, The end of the African peasant? From Investment funds and Finance-Value-Chains to questions about Africa’s farmers
  • Nerhene Davis, University of Western Cape/University of Pretoria, and Edward Lahiff, University of Cork, Ireland, Joint ventures in South Africa’s land reform programme: strategic partnerships or strategic resource grab?
  • Nadia Cuffaro, University of Cassino Italy, Land Grabbing in Developing Countries: Foreign Investors, Regulation and Codes of Conduct
  • Tom Lavers, PhD candidate, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, UK, The role of foreign investment in Ethiopia’s smallholder-focused agricultural development strategy

Panel 25 – GOVERNANCE: Restructuring the State II (220)
Chair: Phil McMichael, Cornell University

  • Michael Dwyer, University of California at Berkeley Energy & Resources Group, Building the politics machine: Tools for resolving the global land grab
  • Deepak K Mishra, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, Behind Dispossession: State, Land Grabbing and Agrarian Change in Rural Orissa
  • Gerben Nooteboom and Rosanne Rutten, University of Amsterdam, Gulf-State Concesessions in Indonesia and the Philippines: Contested Control of Agricultural Land and Foodcrops

Panel 26 – POLITICS: Resistance and Mobilization I (220)
Chair: Shapan Adnan, Oxford University

  • Sam Moyo, African Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS), Harare, Resistances to land grabbing in Africa: Some trends
  • Wendy Wolford, Development Sociology, Cornell University, USA, Patterns of Resistance in Latin America
  • Longgena Ginting, WALHI/Friends of the Earth, Indonesia, and Oliver Pye, University of Bonn, Resisting Agribusiness Development: The Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate in West Papua, Indonesia.

Panel 27 – OVERVIEW: Land grabbing and land titling (Convening Space)
Chair: Phil Hirsch, Australian Mekong Research Centre, University of Sydney

  • Roosbelinda Cardenas Gonzales, University of California at Santa Cruz, After titling: Oil palm landscapes and Afro-Colombian territories
  • Philip Hirsch, University of Sydney, Titling against grabbing? Critiques and conundrums around land formalisation in Southeast Asia
  • Jeremy Ironside, University of Otago, New Zealand, Cambodia
  • Xiubin Li, Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Farmland grabs by urban sprawl and their impacts on peasants’ livelihood in China: An overview
  • LaShandra P Sullivan, University of Chicago, The Space to Be Ourselves: Ethanol, Ethnicity and Land Conflict on a Brazilian “Frontier”

12.30 Lunch

14.00 Panel session 6 (panels 28-32)

Panel 28 – LIVELIHOODS: Land Rights (Convening Space)
Chair: Paul Matthieu, FAO

  • Jennifer Baka, PhD Candidate, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, USA, Biofuels and Wasteland Development: How India’s Biofuel Policy is Aiding in Community Land Privatization in Tamil Nadu
  • Laura German, George Schoneveld and Esther Mwangi, Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia, Processes of Large-Scale Land Acquisition by Investors: Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Victoria Marin, PhD candidate, Twente Centre for Studies in Technology and Sustainable Development-CSTM, University of Twente, Netherlands, Biofuels and Land Appropriation in Colombia: Do Biofuels National Policies Fuel Land Grabs?
  • Alberto Alonso-Fradejas, Land and Territory Area Research Coordinator Institute for Agrarian and Rural Studies, part of Guatemala´s National Coordination of NGOs and Cooperatives (IDEAR-CONGCOOP), Guatemala, Expansion of oil palm agribusinesses over indigenous-peasant lands and territories in Guatemala: Fuelling a new cycle of agrarian accumulation, territorial dominance and social vulnerability?”

Panel 29 – ENVIRONMENT: Ecologies of Dispossession (221)
Chair: Benjamin Gardner, University of Washington,USA

  • Philip McMichael, Development Sociology, Cornell University, The food regime in the land grab: articulating ‘global ecology’ and political economy
  • Brenda Baletti, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Geography, Saving the Amazon? Land grabs and “sustainable soy” as the new logic of conservation
  • Benjamin D. Neimark, Dept. of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Biofuel battlegrounds: Property rights, land deals, and alternative energy production in Madagascar
  • Ritu Verma, University of Sussex, The ‘New’ Politics of Land and Development: Experiences of Dispossession, Social Equity and Environmental Sustainability in East and Southern Africa

Panel 30 – POLITICAL ECONOMY: Dragon in a Three Piece Suit:China Invests (220)
Chair: Joshua Muldavin, Sarah Lawrence College, New York

  • Paulette Nonfodji, University of Amsterdam, China’s Farmland Rush in Benin: Toward a Win-Win Economic Model of Cooperation?
  • Janette Bulkan ECCo, Field Museum, Red Star over Guyana’: colonial-style grabbing of natural resources but new grabbers
  • Lila Buckley, IIED, Eating Bitter to Taste Sweet: An Ethnographic Sketch of a Chinese Agricultural Project in Senegal
  • Peter Ho and I. Hofman, University of Groningen, Netherlands, Land Grabbing or Global Outsourcing: The Case of China

Panel 31 – GOVERNANCE: Community consultation and free prior informed consent (SC1/2)
Chair: Wendy Wolford, Cornell

  • David Deng, New York University (NYU), USA, Free Prior and Informed Consent: Community Consultations for Large-scale Acquisitions in Sudan
  • Dianne Rocheleau, Clark University, title to be confirmed.
  • Anne Perault, title to be confirmed

Panel 32 – POLITICS: Resistance and Mobilization I (SC3/4)
Chair: Eric Holt-Gimenez, Food First

  • Shapan Adnan, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Oxford, Land grabbing, restructuring of land rights, and resistance by dispossessed groups: Analytical issues arising from case studies on rural Bangladesh
  • Cécile Famerée, Leiden University, Netherlands, Land grabbing and popular resistance: case studies in the Peruvian jungle
  • Devparna Roy, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA, Gujarat’s Gain and Bengal’s Loss? Development, Land acquisition in India and the Tata Nano Project: A comparison of Singur with Sanand
  • Venusia Vinciguerra, (former Centre for Intercultural Communication, Norway), Foreign Land Acquisitions and Conflicts: How Daewoo’s land acquisition in Madagascar contributed to the country’s political crisis

15.30 Tea/coffee

16.00 Plenary session: Concluding conversation (chair: Ruth Hall, PLAAS)

  • Dzodzi Tsikata, ISSER, University of Ghana
  • Thomas Sikor, University of East Anglia
  • Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
  • Sofia Monsalve, Foodfirst Information and Action Network (FIAN)

Short presentations from different perspectives: what have we learned, what action do we need to take?

17.00 Closing remarks and thanks – Ian Scoones, Future Agricultures Consortium, IDS,Sussex