Contesting large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South

Abstract

• The analysis synthesizes the case study literature to explain how communities contest large-scale agricultural investment. • Communities use varied tactics, mostly from the repertoires of everyday resistance, collective action, and rights-based means. • Rural communities face unfavorable circumstances for organized protests. • Certain political opportunities and involvement of local leaders enable contentious collective action or rights-based resistance. As agricultural investors have acquired large tracts of land in the Global South recently, many affected communities and civil society groups have contested what they perceive as land grabbing. These communities have struggled to retain their land, protect their livelihoods, or benefit from the investment. There has been much academic interest in these conflicts. Studying the emerging literature, this review identifies the main theoretical perspectives and synthesizes the case study evidence. The goal is to better understand how communities contest large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) and to explain their tactics. For this purpose, a sample was collected that consists of 46 studies and 28 LSLA cases from the Global South. Since most of these studies adopt single theoretical perspectives from resistance research, the present study links multiple theoretical strands, most importantly everyday resistance, contentious politics, and legal mobilization. Based on the cases reviewed, the analysis shows that the tactics of contention are diverse but can also be grouped into three repertoires. It is found that affected communities use everyday resistance mostly when they face particularly unfavorable circumstances. In contrast, certain political opportunities and involvement of local leaders enable organized protests through either collective action or rights-based contention. Overall, this study contributes to the literature not only by bringing together case observations to see the big picture, but also by identifying the main repertoires, tentative frequencies of tactics, and less relevant circumstances and mechanisms. In practical terms, the findings suggest that development and civil society actors can play important roles for assisting rural populations and local leaders in fending off land grabs.