PrintRequired Reading:
Geist, H. J., & Lambin, E. F. (2002). Proximate Causes and Underlying Driving Forces of Tropical Deforestation. BioScience, 52(2), 143-150.
For many years, the conservation and agriculture communities presented facts and figures about the drivers of land use change that included only the immediate (or proximate) causes. Small-scale subsistence farmers all over the developing world (especially those practicing shifting cultivation) were vilified for chopping down the world's precious tropical rain forests. This narrative allowed Western consumers to carry on with their consumption patterns guilt free, allowed large agricultural companies to avoid significant scrutiny, and led to the "fortress" conservation approach to managing protected areas you read about last week. This paper and other work by these geographers was hugely influential as a first major effort to clearly demonstrate the factors that push poor farmers in developing counties to the forest frontiers, and the broader systems that support deforestation. The paper clearly demonstrates that tropical deforestation is driven by synergies between multiple causal factors; including both proximate causes and underlying forces.
Proximate causes: human activities and actions at the immediate or local scale, originate from intended land use and directly impact forest cover.
Underlying driving forces: fundamental social processes (e.g., population dynamics or agricultural policies), that underpin the proximate causes. Can be local, national, or global scale.
Edelman, M., Oya, C., Borras, S.M., 2013. Global Land Grabs: historical processes, theoretical and methodological implications and current trajectories. Third World Quarterly 34(9), 1517-1531.
Since the financial crisis of 2008/ 2009, investor interest in land has climbed sharply. This paper examines what is often called Land Grabbing (large scale acquisition of land, often by foreign entities or non-local people). It advocates for a more nuanced look at the issue, including attention to financialisation and enclosure of land, and the fact that there are many other ways local farmers have been dispossessed of their land. The paper highlights the five themes covered by papers in the special issue of the journal: the long history of land grabbing, the theoretical implications of the contemporary land rush for agrarian political economy and for social theory more broadly, the plurality of legal institutions implicated or potentially implicated in today’s land deals, the differentiated outcomes of grabs and the political reactions of those affected, and the methods most appropriate for carrying out rigorous, relevant research.
The period between 2007 and 2012 is what we can call the ‘making sense period’: media, NGOs, policy experts and academics were grappling with basic questions: what is happening, where and when, who is involved, how much land is involved, and how many people are being expelled from their land? How do we define land grab? What do we count? How do we count? How do we interpret our sources?
... agreement remains firm and widespread that a renewed land rush is indeed happening worldwide, albeit unevenly. ... a growing number of researchers agrees that the initial set of basic questions has served its purpose and its era has ended. A newer set of questions began to emerge towards the end of the initial period of land grab research [which are the focus of the paper and special issue].
NOTE: Links to the readings are located in the Week 11 module in Canvas.