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Browsing by Author "Scoones, Ian"

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Africa's land rush: rural livelihoods and agrarian change
(James Currey, 2015) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Tsikata, Dzodzi
This book is 'the most historically grounded, lucid and nuanced understanding to date of the complex political economy of the contemporary rush for land in Africa' according to Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, Director of of the United Nations Institute for Development. Africa's Land Rush explores the processes through which land deals are being made; the implications for agrian structure, rural livelihoods and food security; and the historical context for changing land uses. The case studies reveal that these land grabs may resonate with, even resurrect, forms of production associated with the colonial and early independence eras. Based on interviews with the investors, goverment, authorities, workers, outgrowers and smallholder farmers in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and the Congo, the book depicts the striking diversity of such deals.
Contested paradigms of ‘viability’ in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2009-06) Cousins, Ben; Scoones, Ian
‘Viability’ is a key term in debates about land reform in southern African and beyond, and is used in relation to both individual projects and programmes. ‘Viability’ connotes ‘successful’ and ‘sustainable’ - but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how have particular conceptions of viability informed state policies and planning approaches? More broadly, how have different notions of viability influenced the politics of land in recent years? This paper interrogates this influential but under-examined notion, reflecting on debates about the viability of land reform – and in particular about the relevance of small- scale, farming-based livelihoods – in southern Africa and more broadly. These questions are not merely of academic interest. How debates are framed and how success is judged has major implications. With arguments for and against redistributive land reform often hinging on the notion of viability, justifications for public expenditure and budget allocations can be offered if programmes and projects are deemed viable. Conversely, portraying redistributive land reform as ‘unviable’ provides a basis for arguments that this is a poor use of public funds. Yet, despite its centrality in debates about land reform, viability is rarely defined, and its precise meaning often remains obscure.
‘Demonstration fields’, anticipation, and contestation: agrarian change and the political economy of development corridors in Eastern Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Chome, Ngala; Gonçalves, Euclides; Scoones, Ian; Sulle, Emmanuel
In much of Eastern Africa, the last decade has seen a renewed interest in spatial development plans that link mineral exploitation, transport infrastructure and agricultural commercialisation. While these development corridors have yielded complex results – even in cases where significant investments are yet to happen – much of the existing analysis continues to focus on economic and implementation questions, where failures are attributed to inappropriate incentives or lack of ‘political will’
Emancipatory rural politics: confronting authoritarian populism
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Scoones, Ian; Edelman, Marc; Borras Jr., Saturnino M.; Hall, Ruth; Wolford, Wendy; White, Ben
A new political moment is underway. Although there are significant differences in how this is constituted in different places, one manifestation of the new moment is the rise of distinct forms of authoritarian populism. In this opening paper of the JPS Forum series on ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’, we explore the relationship between these new forms of politics and rural areas around the world. We ask how rural transformations have contributed to deepening regressive national politics, and how rural areas shape and are shaped by these politics. We propose a global agenda for research, debate and action, which we call the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI, www.iss.nl/erpi). This centres on understanding the contemporary conjuncture, working to confront authoritarian populism through the analysis of and support for alternatives.
Forum on Global Land Grabbing Part 2: The politis of evidence: methodologies for understanding the global land rush
(Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2013) Scoones, Ian; Hall, Ruth; Borras Jr., Saturnino M.; White, Ben; Wolford, Wendy
The most recent ‘land rush’ precipitated by the convergent ‘crises’ of fuel, feed and food in 2007–2008 has heightened the debate on the consequences of land investments, with widespread media coverage, policy commentary and civil society engagement. This ‘land rush’ has been accompanied by a ‘literature rush’, with a fast-growing body of reports, articles, tables and books with varied purposes, metrics and methods. Land grabbing, as it is popularly called, is now a hot political topic around the world, discussed amongst the highest circles. This is why getting the facts right is very important and having effective methodologies for doing so is crucial. Several global initiatives have been created to aggregate information on land deals, and to describe their scale, character and distribution. All have contributed to building a bigger (if not always better) picture of the phenomenon, but all have struggled with methodology. This JPS Forum identifies a profound uncertainty about what it is that is being counted, questions the methods used to collate and aggregate ‘land grabs’, and calls for a second phase of land grab research which abandons the aim of deriving total numbers of hectares in favour of more specific, grounded and transparent methods.
Global land deals: What has been done, what has changed, and what’s next?
(The Land Deal Politics Initiative, 2024) Hall, Ruth; Wendy W, Wolford; Ben, White; Scoones, Ian
In 2010, the Land Deals Politics Initiative formed to study the rising number of large-scale land deals taking place around the world. As the so-called ‘global land grab’ took shape, we organised small grant competitions to generate more empirical research into the phenomenon, and we organised conferences to debate the parameters and dynamics from the local level to the global. In this article, we take stock of what has been written about land grabbing as well as the way in which the context has changed since 2010. We highlight the ongoing need for research, as well as the changing nature of financial capital, the institutional “reforms” that resulted from calls for change, new technologies that have emerged to measure and distribute land access, the role of climate change in underpinning powerful new green grabs, and the changing geopolitical context that challenges resistance even as people struggle to retain their access to land. Finally, in the lead up to the 2024 Conference on Global Land Grabbing in Bogotá, Colombia, we highlight several challenges for the next decade of research on global land grabbing.
Governing global land deals: The role of the state in the rush for land
(Wiley, 2013) Wolford, Wendy; Borras Jr., Saturnino M.; Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; White, Ben
Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in large-scale land deals, often from public lands to the hands of foreign or domestic investors. Popularly referred to as a ‘global land grab’, new land acquisitions are drawing upon, restructuring and challenging the nature of both governance and government. In the Introduction to this special issue, we argue for an analysis of land deals that draws upon the insights of political ecology, cultural politics and agrarian studies to illuminate the micro-processes of transaction and expropriation as well as the broader structural forces at play. We argue that ‘the state’ is often invoked as a key player in land grabbing but states never operate with one voice; rather we need to unbundle the state, to see government and governance as processes, people and relationships. To develop this approach, we focus on territory, sovereignty, authority and subjects not as static objects but as relationships produced in and through place, property, power and production. Understanding the dynamic nature of these relationships is critical to understanding the highly variable form and content of large-scale land deals in different settings around the world. The papers in this special issue help to develop this perspective and this Introduction highlights important areas of convergence among them.
LEGEND state of the debate report 2016 - Strengthening land governance: Lessons from implementing the Voluntary Guidelines
(Legend, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Henley, Giles
The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) are a globally agreed standard. Achieving this normative consensus in an inclusive and participatory process in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was an enormous achievement and one to which the UK is proud to have contributed. The UK is committed to promoting the VGGT and to supporting initiatives to strengthen implementation and monitoring, as part of its commitment to addressing poverty and food security globally, and to improving accountable and transparent governance of natural resources. Much more remains to be done for the principles of the VGGT to be realised in practice, and to translate into better, more land secure rights for women, indigenous people and others whose rights are marginalized, and into transparent and democratic land governance. In pursuit of this commitment, the UK has created the Land: Enhancing Governance for Economic Development (LEGEND) programme to provide a unique contribution towards improved knowledge and practice as a global public good. LEGEND aims to mobilise knowledge and capacity for design and delivery of new country programmes, improve land governance as an essential and inclusive basis for economic development, and strengthen land and property rights at scale. Through building policy coherence globally and stimulating innovation across civil society, private sector and sector at country and local levels, LEGEND aims to improve the quality and impact of land investments of all kinds so they contribute sustainably to growth while safeguarding rights and opportunities for poor people — rural and urban — especially women.
Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
(Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth
Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, naturalresource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resourcesconsidered‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities.Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings–absolute, relative and political scarcity–associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo andMarx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates howdiverse framings of scarcity–what it is, its causes and what is to be done–are evident in competing narrativesthat animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that currentmainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening upthis debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resourcesare distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings,seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as wherelocal scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, andresource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
Narratives of scarcity: Framing the global land rush
(Elsevier, 2019) Scoones, Ian; Smalley, Rebecca; Hall, Ruth; Tsikata, Dzodzi
Global resource scarcity has become a central policy concern, with predictions of rising populations, natural resource depletion and hunger. The narratives of scarcity that arise as a result justify actions to harness resources considered ‘underutilised’, leading to contestations over rights and entitlements and producing new scarcities. Yet scarcity is contingent, contextual, relational and above all political. We present an analysis of three framings – absolute, relative and political scarcity – associated with the intellectual traditions of Malthus, Ricardo and Marx, respectively. A review of 134 global and Africa-specific policy and related sources demonstrates how diverse framings of scarcity – what it is, its causes and what is to be done – are evident in competing narratives that animate debates about the future of food and farming in Africa and globally. We argue that current mainstream narratives emphasise absolute and relative scarcity, while ignoring political scarcity. Opening up this debate, with a more explicit focus on political scarcities is, we argue, important; emphasising how resources are distributed between different needs and uses, and so different people and social classes. For African settings, seen as both a source of abundant resources and a site where global scarcities may be resolved, as well as where local scarcities are being experienced most acutely, a political scarcity framing on the global land rush, and resource questions more broadly, is, we suggest, essential.
Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change
(Taylor & Francis OA, 2017) Hall, Ruth; Scoones, Ian; Tsikata, Dzodzi
Whether or not investments in African agriculture can generate quality employment at scale, avoid dispossessing local people of their land, promote diversified and sustainable livelihoods, and catalyse more vibrant local economies depends on what farming model is pursued. In this Forum, we build on recent scholarship by discussing the key findings of our recent studies in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia. We examined cases of three models of agricultural commercialisation, characterised by different sets of institutional arrangements that link land, labour and capital. The three models are: plantations or estates with on-farm processing; contract farming and outgrower schemes; and medium-scale commercial farming areas. Building on core debates in the critical agrarian studies literature, we identify commercial farming areas and contract farming as producing the most local economic linkages, and plantations/estates as producing more jobs, although these are of low quality and mostly casual. We point to the gender and generational dynamics emerging in the three models, which reflect the changing demand for family and wage labour. Models of agricultural commercialisation do not always deliver what is expected of them in part because local conditions play a critical role in the unfolding outcomes for land relations, labour regimes, livelihoods and local economies.
The political economy of sugar in Southern Africa – introduction
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Dubb, Alex; Scoones, Ian; Woodhouse, Philip
In this introductory paper we review historic and contemporary development of sugar cane production across the southern Africa. We argue that the region’s sugar industry provides a useful lens through which to understand current dynamics of corporate capital and agricultural production in Africa. We identify three distinct elements of political-economic analysis: first, the operation of logics of capital investment in different settings; second, the nature of state policies and politics in different national contexts; and third, local processes of production, accumulation and livelihoods, including effects on labour and social differentiation. The paper draws on the empirical cases from seven southern African countries presented in this collection. It highlights the rapid concentration of corporate control by three South African companies over the past decade, but also a diverse set of outcomes contingent on local context. This is particularly evident in the nature of ‘outgrower’ sugar cane production which is found in all cases but constituted in different places by quite different social categories in terms of wealth and scale of production. We argue that common stereotypes of corporate investment as either ‘win–win’ or as a ‘land grab’ rarely apply. Rather, the nature and outcomes of ‘outgrower’ systems needs to be understood as a manifestation of context-specific political-economic relationships between corporate capital, national governments and a variety of local holders of capital, land and labour.
The politics of evidence: A response to Rulli and D'Odorico
(Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2013) Scoones, Ian; Hall, Ruth; Borras Jr., Saturnino M.; White, Ben; Wolford, Wendy
We welcome Rulli and D’Odorico’s response to our introduction to the Journal for Peasant Studies (JPS) Forum on Global Land Grabbing(Scoones etal.2013) in which we discussed the ‘literature rush’ that has accompanied the global ‘land rush’. We outlined a series of concerns with the data being used in this literature – concerns both with the data itself and with its uncritical deployment in popular and academic studies. We called for a second phase of land grab research that would ground abstract calculations of imprecise global averages in favour of concrete, situated and transparent research that could address critical questions such as what is actually happening, who is winning and losing, and why. With our discussion of the ‘politics of evidence’ we called for research that would extend beyond the ﬁxation on ‘killer facts’–the headline-grabbing numbers. Instead, ground-truthing and generating traceable datasets are essential.
Space, markets and employment in agricultural development: Zimbabwe country report
(Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2015) Sukume, Chrispen; Mavedzenge, Blasio; Murimbarima, Felix; Scoones, Ian
Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has undergone several phases of land redistribution, generally to communal and working people. The latest phase was the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), which began in 2000 and redistributed 10.82 million hectares of land to 168 671 mainly small-scale producers (Moyo 2011). The result has been a major transformation of the farming landscape, with large-scale farms and ranches giving way to multiple smaller farms in an array of sizes. However, land reform on its own is not a cure for all rural economic development challenges. Land redistribution addresses the problem of land access – a key resource in generating farm-based employment and income – but, in addition, there is the need to create non-farm employment within the new rural spaces. This is an issue of central importance for agricultural development policy: not only because there are many people in rural areas who are landless or not involved in agricultural production, and who, therefore, do not benefit directly from land reform provisions, but also because large-scale agricultural investment projects, and increases in the productivity and efficiency of agriculture, may lead to people being displaced from land. Internationally, the existence of a large and growing population of landless and unemployed people, no longer involved in agriculture but unable to find a foothold in the non-farm economy, seriously compromises poverty reduction, food security, well-being and stability. Yet, the impact of agricultural development decisions on non-farm employment is often disregarded by policy-makers, who assume that those not finding employment in agriculture can be absorbed into the economy in other ways.

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