Does Commons Grabbing Lead to Resilience Grabbing? The Anti-Politics Machine of Neo-Liberal Agrarian Development and Local Responses

Tobias Haller,Fabian Käser,Mariah Ngutu

doi:10.3390/land9070220

Abstract

This Special Issue contributes to the debate that land grabbing should be discussed as commons grabbing [...]

Highlights

This Special Issue contributes to the debate that land grabbing should be discussed as commons grabbing
It poses this question: does commons grabbing removes local people’s capacity for resilience in the Global South, especially in Africa and if so how does that process unfold? The contributions share a focus on how the development of state institutions and voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by investors have enabled the grabbing process of not just removing land but land and land-related common-pool resources formally previously governed by local common property institutions
The papers look at how state institutions and CSR programs are used for development strategies by state actors and companies to legitimate their investments

Summary

Introduction

This Special Issue contributes to the debate that land grabbing should be discussed as commons grabbing. The contributions of this Special Issue present local perceptions and related responses of commoners to the grabbing-process, go beyond resistance, acquaintance and incorporation (see Hall et al2015 [17]) They include further strategies ranging from weapons of the weak (Scott 1987 [18]) to options of mobilization (labelled as politics machines, see Niederberger et al 2016 [19]), containing institution shopping from below (on customary and human rights laws and regulations, see Marfurt 2019 [20]) and bottom-up institution building processes to reclaim the commons and its new participatory governance (see constitutionality approach by Haller, Acciaioli and Rist 2016 [21], Haller, Belsky and Rist 2018 [22]). This case shows how all actors use strategies of institution shopping but that the way to be able to do this relies on historically developed power relations

Agricultural Neoliberal Order and Notions of Green Development

Green investments and Anti-Politics Machines

Conclusions