Just out: The Global Land Grab - Beyond the Hype

The last few years have seen a huge amount of academic, policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of ‘land grabbing’ - the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenceless, and one about which multilateral organizations such as the World Bank as well as civil-society organizations and action NGOs have become increasingly vocal.

This in-depth and empirically diverse volume takes a step back from the hype to explore a number of key questions: Does the ‘global land grab’ actually exist? If so, what is new about it? And what, beyond the immediately visible dynamics and practices, are the real problems? 

A comprehensive and much-needed intervention on one of the most hotly contested but little-understood issues facing global South countries today.

“The Global Land Grab represents an important break from the earlier wave of land grabs studies in at least three interlinked ways: in its look beyond the ‘here and now’ by historicizing analysis; in its grounded local-national studies; and in its comparative perspective across regions of the world.”

Saturnino M. Borras Jr.,  Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague