Abstract
The recent phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) is associated with what has been described as a global agrarian transition. New forms of land exploitation and concentration have led to profound socio-environmental transformations of rural production systems in Latin America, South-East Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. Scholars have pointed out that the expansion of transnational land investments is often associated with detrimental social outcomes, has negative environmental impacts and can represent a potential impediment to the achievement of many SDGs. In this paper, our primary concern is on the mounting evidence that LSLAs preferentially target the commons, in the process altering long-standing customary resource governance systems. While it has been shown that in many instances of commons grabbing associated with LSLAs, different types of social conflict emerge, it is less clear what forms of social mobilization and organized collective re-actions are taking place to defend the commons and contest such processes of dispossession and enclosure. The main aim of this contribution is to fill this gap by synthesizing and describing the different typologies of social mobilization and collective re-actions that emerge as a result of commons grabbing associated with the transnational expansion of the agribusiness frontier. In order to do this our research synthesizes information from the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) shedding light on some of the key characteristics associated with the different forms and dynamics of social mobilization that are organized in reaction to agribusiness-related commons grabbing.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 107004 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-13 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Ecological Economics |
Volume | 184 |
Early online date | 19 Mar 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to the two external reviewers and the special issue editor for their excellent and very helpful comments. This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145. J.D.A. acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) grant agreement No. 861509 ? NEWAVE. A.S. acknowledges funding from the Beatriu de Pin?s postdoctoral programme of the Government of Catalonia's Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge (2017 BP 00023). G.N. and A.S. acknowledge support from the ERC project ?EnvJustice? (GA 695446). GDA acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/SOC/50012/2019). L.T. acknowledges the support of the Leadership for the Ecozoic Program. Thank you to Kyle F. Davis for his help with the map.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
We are grateful to the two external reviewers and the special issue editor for their excellent and very helpful comments. This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145. J.D.A. acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) grant agreement No. 861509 ? NEWAVE. A.S. acknowledges funding from the Beatriu de Pin?s postdoctoral programme of the Government of Catalonia's Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge (2017 BP 00023). G.N. and A.S. acknowledge support from the ERC project ?EnvJustice? (GA 695446). GDA acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/SOC/50012/2019). L.T. acknowledges the support of the Leadership for the Ecozoic Program. Thank you to Kyle F. Davis for his help with the map.
Funders | Funder number |
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Beatriu de Pinós | |
Catalonia's Secretariat for Universities and Research | |
National Science Foundation | DBI-1639145 |
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 695446 |
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions | 861509 |
National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center | |
European Research Council | |
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | UID/SOC/50012/2019 |
Ministry of Knowledge Economy | 2017 BP 00023 |
Horizon 2020 |
Keywords
- Commons grabbing
- Environmental conflicts
- Land grabbing
- Large-scale land acquisitions
- Social mobilization
- Violence