Land Grabbing

Not Affected the Same Way: Gendered Outcomes for Commons and Resilience Grabbing by Large-Scale Forest Investors in Tanzania

Citation:

Gmür, Désirée. 2020. “Not Affected the Same Way: Gendered Outcomes for Commons and Resilience Grabbing by Large-Scale Forest Investors in Tanzania.” Land 9 (4): 122.

Author: Désirée Gmür

Abstract:

The topic of large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) has attracted wide interest in the literature and the media. However, there is little work on the gendered institutional changes and gendered impacts on common pool resources (CPR) due to LSLA. The aim of this paper is to address these impacts. This is done by discussing data from participatory research (using the methods of participatory observation, semi-structured and narrative interviews, biographies, focus group discussions, value chain analysis, and household questionnaires) on a forestry plantation operated by the British investor, the New Forests Company (NFC) in the Kilolo district, in the Iringa region. The institutional arrangements regarding different land-related common pool resources from pre-colonial times until the arrival of this investment will be shown. Furthermore, how these arrangements have changed over time and since the LSLA is presented. Then, the effects on men’s and women’s access to CPR and, thus, the impacts on their capacities to perform their reproductive work and resilience will be addressed. Furthermore, the paper focuses on how different stakeholders in the land deal (the investor, the government, different local people) make use of these different institutions to push through their own interests regarding the land. Finally, the paper looks at collective compensation payments (such as monetary compensation and jobs) and forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes, and how they are perceived emically. It is argued that the LSLA in this case clearly grabs land and land-related common pool resources that were previously held in common. Women, such as daughters, sisters, and wives, had specific access and property rights to these. Thus, the paper concludes that this grabbing lowers women’s resilience and deprives them of important resources for their livelihoods, and for food and cash production at critical times. CSR programmes and compensation rarely reach women and are, for them, an anti-politics machine, hiding the grabbing processes, and impacting the poorest of the poor, while the company uses a development discourse to legitimise its activities. In fact, the people perceive the investment as trapping them in underdevelopment.

Keywords: large scale land acquisitions, Gender, institutions, common pool resources, common property, land tenure transformations, corporate social responsibility, social anthropology, resilience

Topics: Development, Gender, Land Grabbing, Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2020

Mainstreaming Gender in the Process of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions for Agro-Investment in Cameroon

Citation:

Fonjong, Lotsmart. 2019. “Mainstreaming Gender in the Process of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions for Agro-Investment in Cameroon.” In Natural Resource Endowment and the Fallacy of Development in Cameroon, 215-42. Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.

Author: Lotsmart Fonjong

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Land Grabbing Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Cameroon

Year: 2019

Left out but Not Backing down: Exploring Women’s Voices against Large-Scale Agro-Plantations in Cameroon

Citation:

Fonjong, Lotsmart. 2017. “Left out but Not Backing Down: Exploring Women’s Voices against Large-Scale Agro-Plantations in Cameroon.” Development in Practice 27 (8): 1114–25.

Author: Lotsmart Fonjong

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This article examines the situation of women around agro-plantations which have taken over their farmlands in the South-West Region of Cameroon through large-scale land acquisitions, and how they have sought popular redress. Based on a survey and focus group discussion among affected women, the findings revealed that women are generally left out of large-scale land acquisition processes. They complained of displacement from their farms and traditional forest resources, which has negative effects on their livelihoods and lifestyles. Despite women’s constrained situation, they have risen collectively against marginalisation, failed promises, and injustices through protests and defiance, achieving some successes in their demands for recognition and compensation.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Cet article examine la situation des femmes dont les terres agricoles ont été acquises par les plantations agro-industrielles lors d'acquisitions foncières à grande échelle dans la Région Sud-Ouest du Cameroun, et comment elles ont cherché à obtenir réparation. Basés sur une enquête et des groupes de discussion thématique, les résultats ont révélé que les femmes concernées sont généralement exclues des processus d'acquisition foncière à grande échelle. Malgré leur situation contraignante, les femmes se sont soulevées collectivement contre leur marginalisation, les promesses non tenues et les injustices subies par elles à travers des manifestations et des actes de défiance, jusqu'à obtenir certains succès pour leurs exigences de reconnaissance et de compensation.

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
El presente artículo examina la situación de mujeres que habitan en zonas cercanas a plantas agroindustriales que, a través de adquisiciones de tierra a gran escala, han acaparado sus tierras en la región suroeste de Camerún. Asimismo, aborda cómo estas mujeres han solicitado reparaciones. La aplicación de una encuesta y la realización de discusiones entre mujeres afectadas en grupos de enfoque, revelan que éstas generalmente son excluidas de los procesos de adquisición de tierra a gran escala. Debido a ello reclaman haber sido desplazadas de sus parcelas agrícolas y de sus recursos forestales tradicionales, lo que ha producido efectos dañinos tanto en sus medios de vida como en sus estilos de vida. A pesar de la difícil situación que enfrentan, las mujeres se han movilizado colectivamente —a través de protestas y resistencias— en contra de la marginación, las promesas incumplidas y las injusticias, logrando algunos avances en sus demandas de reconocimiento y compensación.

Keywords: Sub- Saharan Africa, gender and diversity, Rights

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Cameroon

Year: 2017

Gender Issues in Large Scale Land Acquisition: Insights from Oil Palm in Indonesia

Citation:

Elmhirst, Rebecca, Bimbika Sijapati Basnett, Mia Siscawati, and Dian Ekowati. 2013. Gender Issues in Large Scale Land Acquisition: Insights from Oil Palm in Indonesia.  Washington, DC: Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).

Authors: Rebecca Elmhirst, Bimbika Sijapati Basnett, Mia Siscawati, Dian Ekowati

Annotation:

Summary:
"This report is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides a brief background to the issues globally and describes the methodology. Chapter 3 comprises the main body of the case study, drawing on information gathered in the key informant interviews and focus group discussions, as well as on relevant secondary materials. It situates the case in Laos and explores the policy context and key gender and governance issues around land-related agricultural investments. It also presents from the fieldwork some primary data on agricultural investments and examples of good practices from companies and for an enabling environment for smallholders. Chapter 4 then ends the report with overall conclusions and policy recommendations for land-related investments in agriculture in Laos" (Elmhirst et al 2013, 3).

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Land Grabbing Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2013

The Gender and Equity Implications of Land- Related Investments on Land Access and Labour and Income-Generating Opportunities: A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in LAO PDR

Citation:

Daley, Elizabeth, Martha Osorio, and Clara Mi Young Park. 2013. The Gender and Equity Implications of Land- Related Investments on Land Access and Labour and Income-Generating Opportunities: A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in LAO PDR. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Authors: Elizabeth Daley, Martha Osorio, Clara Mi Young Park

Annotation:

Summary:
“The FAO work programme has a number of complementary components, including a series of case studies in countries where private foreign investments are already operational. The present report, on agricultural investments in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), is the second in this series of case studies. It is based primarily on a period of four weeks fieldwork in Laos in November 2011, in which interviews were held with over 68 key informants and with some 114 people (51 women and 63 men) who were consulted in 17 focus group discussions with local farmers and agricultural workers. The fieldwork was carried out in three of Lao PDR’s 17 provinces – Borikhamxai, Vientiane and Vientiane Capital – with the active support and facilitation of the FAO Country Office and the Government of Lao PDR. Six companies covering a wide range of business models and crops were selected. Among those, there is a tobacco producer. Given the existing conflict of interest between the tobacco industry and public health and recognizing FAO’s role, as part of the United Nations Ad Hoc Interagency Task Force on Tobacco Control, in promoting economically viable and sustainable alternatives for tobacco workers and growers, this report does not support nor endorse the tobacco value chain.
 
“This report is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides a brief background to the issues globally and describes the methodology. Chapter 3 comprises the main body of the case study, drawing on information gathered in the key informant interviews and focus group discussions, as well as on relevant secondary materials. It situates the case in Laos and explores the policy context and key gender and governance issues around land-related agricultural investments. It also presents from the fieldwork some primary data on agricultural investments and examples of good practices from companies and for an enabling environment for smallholders. Chapter 4 then ends the report with overall conclusions and policy recommendations for land-related investments in agriculture in Laos” (Daley and Park 2013, 3).

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Laos

Year: 2013

The Gender and Equity Implications of Land- Related Investments on Land Access and Labour and Income-Generating Opportunities: A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Northern Tanzania

Citation:

Daley, Elizabeth, and Clara Mi Young Park. 2012. The Gender and Equity Implications of Land- Related Investments on Land Access and Labour and Income-Generating Opportunities: A Case Study of Selected Agricultural Investments in Northern Tanzania. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Authors: Elizabeth Daley, Clara Mi Young Park

Annotation:

Summary:
This study investigates the gender dimensions of the socioeconomic outcomes of selected agricultural investments in Northern Tanzania. The report draws on a review of the literature and on field research conducted in 2011. Fieldwork mainly involved stakeholder interviews and focus groups discussions with investors, local farmers, outgrowers and wage workers involved with two private-sector companies – in horticulture and jatropha – and with group-based producer schemes organized with the assistance of a member-based organization. The study’s findings indicate clearly that land-related agricultural investments do have gender-differentiated implications for labour and income generation opportunities for rural women and men, and for their access, use and control of land. This means that the governments and international organizations that are encouraging investments in agriculture need to specifically address gender and social equity concerns, and not just concerns of agricultural and economic growth and productivity. The study identifies some good practices from a gender and equity perspective in the businesses examined and suggests some policy recommendations. (Summary from the Land Portal)

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2012

Governing a Liminal Land Deal: The Biopolitics and Necropolitics of Gender

Citation:

Chung, Youjin B. 2020. “Governing a Liminal Land Deal: The Biopolitics and Necropolitics of Gender.” Antipode 52 (3): 722–41.

Author: Youjin B. Chung

Abstract:

Over the past decade, there has been a surge in large-scale land acquisitions around the world. Yet, increasing evidence suggests that many of the prominent land deals signed during the global land rush are struggling to materialise. This emergent pattern of liminality has important implications for understanding the everyday, contingent, and gendered processes of land deal governance and subject formation. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines the gendered governance of a “liminal” land deal in coastal Tanzania, through a case of the EcoEnergy Sugar Project. It shows how the project’s prolonged delay has given rise, over time, to two contradistinctive sets of actors and mechanisms of control: biopolitical interventions of international development consultants focused on livelihood improvements, and necro political interventions of district paramilitary forces focused on surveillance and violence. While seemingly contradictory, I argue that both enactments of power fundamentally relied on and reproduced normative gender in rural Tanzania.

Keywords: land grab, biopolitics, necropolitics, Gender, development, Tanzania

Topics: Development, Environment, Gender, Land Grabbing, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Paramilitaries, Livelihoods, Violence Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2020

Digging Deep: The Impact of Uganda’s Land Rush on Women’s Rights

Citation:

Capraro, Chiara, and Jessica Woodroffe. 2018. “Digging Deep: The Impact of Uganda’s Land Rush on Women’s Rights.” London: Womankind Worldwide.

Authors: Chiara Capraro, Jessica Woodroffe

Annotation:

Summary:
“In this report, we aim to demonstrate the impact of land acquisition on women’s rights, as well as explore how the deeply entrenched unequal gender relations and discriminatory social norms – present in Uganda as in every other country in the world – result in significant gaps in Ugandan land laws (see Section 3 for a discussion on land and law).
 
“In Section 2 we share the feminist participatory action research (FPAR) methodology used in this project. Section 3 considers Uganda’s complex land laws, and the way in which discriminatory norms prevent women from obtaining justice. Section 4 highlights the impact of the land rush on women in five districts of Uganda, urging us to learn from the testimonies of the rural women most affected. To protect these women’s identities, we have used pseudonyms in lieu of their real names.
 
“In Section 5, we demonstrate how economic strategies around investment and the commodification of natural resources interact with discriminatory norms to further disadvantage women. Section 6 shows the collective resistance of women’s movements to abuses of land rights. Finally Section 7 draws conclusions, and Section 8 offers recommendations to governments, the international community and corporate actors working in Uganda” (Capraro and Woodroffe 2018, 4).

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, Justice, Land Grabbing, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2018

How Do Women Respond in the Context of Acquisition of Agricultural Land? A Micro Level Study in Semi-Urban South Bengal, India

Citation:

Kanti Das, Bidhan, and Nabanita Guha. 2016.  “How Do Women Respond in the Context of Acquisition of Agricultural Land? A Micro Level Study in Semi-Urban South Bengal, India.”  Indian Journal of Human Development 10 (2):  253-69.

Authors: Bidhan Kanti Das, Nabanita Guha

Abstract:

The state’s ‘eminent domain’ provision under colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is the major cause that forcefully dispossesses the peasantry of their major means of production, that is, land. Though it facilitates rapid industrialization, it has a severe impact on affected persons that often leads to socio-economic impoverishment. Despite the existence of a significant number of studies on the relationship and impacts of development-forced displacement and resettlement in general, only a few studies focus on gender issues. Moreover, there is complete absence of studies on the consequences, which women face in the context of acquisition of agricultural land, where the affected persons are not physically relocated. Based on a micro-level field study, it tries to explore what the affected persons, particularly the women, do when the productive assets like agricultural lands have been acquired for private industries. Furthermore, it tries to examine whether there is any impact on the members of neighbouring families, particularly the women, whose lands have not been acquired. Analyzing the village-level data in an industrial zone of South Bengal, India, it is revealed that land acquisition forced the affected women to go outside for earning, thereby enhancing their position in the family in an agrarian environment. This positively affected the neighbouring women and made them engage in income-generating activities, breaking the cultural traditions of non-participation of women in outside work and patriarchal subjugation, prevalent in peasant societies of India.

Keywords: Land acquisition Act 1894, occupational change, utilisation of compensation money, South Bengal

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2016

Improving the Socioeconomic Status of Rural Women Associated with Agricultural Land Acquisition: A Case Study in Huong Thuy Town, Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam

Citation:

Pham Thi, Nhung, Martin Kappas, and Heiko Faust. 2019. “Improving the Socioeconomic Status of Rural Women Associated with Agricultural Land Acquisition: A Case Study in Huong Thuy Town, Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam.” Land 8 (10): 151. 

Authors: Nhung Pham Thi, Martin Kappas, Heiko Faust

Abstract:

Since the 2000s, agricultural land acquisition (ALA) for urbanization and industrialization has been quickly implemented in Vietnam, which has led to a huge socioeconomic transformation in rural areas. This paper applies the sustainable livelihoods framework to analyze how ALA has impacted the socioeconomic status (SES) of rural women whose agricultural land was acquired. To get primary data, we surveyed 150 affected households, conducted three group discussions and interviewed nine key informants. The research findings reveal that ALA, when applied toward urbanization, has significantly improved the occupational status of rural women by creating non-farm job opportunities that have improved their income, socioeconomic knowledge and working skills. While their SES has been noticeably enhanced, these positive impacts are still limited in cases where ALA is applied toward industrial and energy development, since these purposes do not create many new jobs. Moreover, the unclear responsibility of stakeholders and inadequate livelihood rehabilitation programs of ALA projects have obstructed the opportunities of rural women. To improve the SES of rural women, we recommend that ALA policy initiate a flexible livelihoods support plan based on the purpose of ALA and the concrete responsibilities of stakeholders and investors.

Keywords: agricultural land acquisition, alternative job, socio-economic status, rural women and land use policy

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Infrastructure, Energy, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Vietnam

Year: 2019

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