Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This dissertation investigates the processes which underpin land grabbing, the diverse land grab types, actors involved and their roles in facilitating the expropriation of community land. It also interrogates the agrarian transformations and socio-economic consequences and the mechanisms employed by the local communities in Amuru district of Northern Uganda to block and resist the expropriation of their land. To achieve these objectives, this study employed a qualitative research design and methodology. The techniques that were used to collect the data are review of secondary data, individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study revealed that liberalisation of the Ugandan economy reduced the role of the state and subsequently promoted market approaches to land and agrarian reform. Market-led approaches have facilitated the commoditisation and entry of private investment in land and agriculture in Uganda. The dissertation identifies two distinct categories of land grabs in Amuru district. The first category comprises of two cases. One, large-scale land grabbing for commercial agriculture by the Madhvani Group in Lakang village; and two, large-scale land grabbing for conservation purposes by Lake Albert Safaris Limited in Apaa village. The second category encompasses localised small-scale land grabs between and among local communities of Amuru district. I further disaggregated the localised small-scale land grabs into four broad categories which are ‘inter and intra-community’ as well as ‘inter and intra-family’ land grabs, with the former encompassing the broader members of the community, while the latter involves members of related families. The actors who are directly and indirectly involved in land grabbing are domestic and foreign investors, the Ugandan state, Uganda Wildlife Authority, local governments, military personnel, the politically connected and rich peasants in Amuru district. Whereas land grabbing in Amuru district has resulted in the accumulation of more land, power and capital for domestic and foreign investors as well as local elites, loss of agrarian livelihood systems, rights to land, cultural heritage, identity, spirituality and belonging, incarceration and loss of lives as well as destruction of property have, in turn, disempowered and marginalised the local communities. A wide range of response mechanisms, including open display of nudity by elderly women, seeking legal redress from statutory courts and traditional authorities, questioning the procedure of land acquisition, acceptance and rejection of widow inheritance have been deployed by the local communities to block and resist the expropriation of their land.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地域研究) / 甲第20493号 / 地博第212号 / 新制||地||76(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科東南アジア地域研究専攻 / (主査)教授 岡本 正明, 教授 水野 広祐, 教授 藤倉 達郎 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Area Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / This thesis examines debates concerning large-scale land acquisitions in Kenya by looking at the case of the Dominion Farms Limited takeover of Yala Swamp. The case study illustrates actual practices of Kenya’s land governance system in terms of how large-scale land acquisitions take shape and their results on the ground. The study explores changes that have taken place at Yala Swamp from 2003 to 2013 and assesses them against the backdrop of recent and emerging land governance regulatory frameworks at national, regional and global levels. The study’s research methodology and data analysis reveal that the new large-scale land acquisition phenomenon has a historical dimension in that it perpetuates a continued legacy of land dispossession of local communities of the unregistered land thereby disrupting their livelihoods. This thesis contributes to a lively intellectual debate and literature on land governance by examining land issues from a governance and political economy perspective. Yala Swamp was chosen as a case study of large-scale land acquisition. The case shows how new land regulatory policies are being shaped and constrained by what is considered beneficial for foreign investment but not necessarily in tandem with local communities’ needs and expectations. This thesis is anchored on the assumption that land governance frameworks’ transformative potential depends on the extent to which they are able to address the structural factors that entrench continued poverty, food insecurity, gender inequality, environmental degradation and land conflicts. The thesis argues that initiatives that facilitate the corporate takeover of land and other resources from the poor in order to give to large-scale investors foreclose the smallholder agricultural space for future expansion. It further argues that an understanding of land reform processes from a governance and political economy perspective offers insight that could not only improve the design of land governance regulatory frameworks, but also provide pathways to support implementation.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地球環境学) / 甲第19153号 / 地環博第128号 / 新制||地環||26(附属図書館) / 32104 / 京都大学大学院地球環境学舎地球環境学専攻 / (主査)教授 舟川 晋也, 准教授 真常 仁志, 准教授 橋本 禅, 准教授 ｼﾞｪｰﾝ ｼﾝｶﾞｰ / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Global Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM

[pt] Os últimos anos têm presenciado um rápido aumento nos casos de land grab em diversas regiões do mundo. Terras e outros itens relacionados a ela têm sido apropriados em uma corrida global, que têm resultado em desapropriações, violações de direitos humanos, insegurança alimentar, dentre outros. O principal objetivo desta dissertação é analisar as iniciativas de organizações internacionais para a regulação global dos investimentos em terra e discutir seus efeitos sobre o fenômeno land grabbing no início do século XXI. Para isso, o estudo busca, primeiramente, avançar na compreensão do land grabbing, entendido como apropriação de terras, ideia que está diretamente ligada aos processos paralelos de acumulação por espoliação e reprodução ampliada do capital, conforme conceitos de David Harvey, e a transformações recentes na economia e política mundiais, que contribuíram para a corrida contemporânea. Esta perspectiva é complementada pela teoria crítica neogramsciana das Relações Internacionais, que explicam como a governança global do período está entrelaçada a um modelo de desenvolvimento dominante. A governança global dos land grabs é analisada por meio do foco em duas iniciativas multilaterais, elaboradas pelo Banco Mundial e agências da ONU. Os conceitos de novo constitucionalismo e civilização de mercado são essenciais para notar como as organizações internacionais têm sido aliadas no processo de mercantilização da natureza, em uma governança pautada por um discurso neoliberal e coordenada pela disciplina de mercado e pelo poder político. Argumenta-se que tais organizações, por meio de suas iniciativas de governança da terra, legitimam as apropriações de terra e contribuem para uma despolitização do debate sobre land grabbing. / [en] Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in land grabbing in several regions of the world. Land and other related items have been appropriate in a global race whose dynamics have resulted in expropriations, human rights violations, food insecurity, among others. The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the initiatives of international organizations for the global regulation of investments on land and to discuss their effects on the land grabbing phenomenon at the beginning of the 21st century. To this end, this study seeks firstly to advance the understanding of the land grabbing phenomenon, understood as appropriation of land, an idea that is directly linked to the parallel processes of accumulation by dispossession and reproduction of capital, according to David Harvey s concepts, and to recent transformations in world economy and politics, which contributed to the contemporary race. This perspective is complemented by assumptions and concepts of neogramscian critical theory of International Relations, which explain how the global governance of the period is intertwined with a dominant development model. The global governance of the land grabs is analyzed by focusing on two multilateral initiatives, launched by the World Bank and UN agencies. The concepts of new constitutionalism and market civilization are essential to note how international organizations have been allied in the process of commodification of nature, in governance ruled by a neoliberal discourse and coordinated by market discipline and political power. It is argued that such organizations, through their land governance initiatives, legitimize land appropriations and contribute to depoliticizing the land grabbing debate.

The growing demand for biofuels in the European Union is expected to have a significant impact on rural environments in sub-Saharan Africa. In the wake of Directive 2009/28/EC, Ghana experienced a rapid rise in foreign land acquisitions and direct investments to its agricultural sector. The potential implications of this development are multi-fold: While proponents of the EU biofuels policy stress the potential for agricultural development and improved energy security in the region, its opponents criticise the lack of binding rules and regulations concerning social sustainability and indirect land use changes. As a means of assessing the validity of these opposing views, this research paper provides an analysis of the directive's impact on Ghanaian energy security and agricultural development in the country. The analysis is based on key informant interviews and a comprehensive literature reviews. It is concluded that the potential of host countries to generate benefits from the cultivation of energy crops largely rests on their institutional framework. In Ghana, foreign biofuel investments appear to have at least partially resulted in negative socio-economic impacts on local rural communities. Formal and informal land rights, as well as land acquisition procedures present significant obstacles. Civil action and the proposal for a new national biofuels policy indicate, however, that the country could eventually emerge as a beneficiary of the global trend towards biofuels.

Submitted by Elesbão Santiago Neto (neto10uepb@cche.uepb.edu.br) on 2018-04-03T19:57:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Maria Eduarda de Andrade e Sousa.pdf: 63325585 bytes, checksum: 7f551556521eeedc1bde5a1557a3cc05 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-03T19:57:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Maria Eduarda de Andrade e Sousa.pdf: 63325585 bytes, checksum: 7f551556521eeedc1bde5a1557a3cc05 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-02 / CAPES / This thesis addresses the issue of transnational land acquisitions – henceforth land grabbing or land grabs – which have expanded and gained visibility in the context of the food, financial and energy crises that have arisen between 2007 and 2008. The present thesis analyzes the current wave of transnational land acquisitions in Mozambique from the perspective of Post-colonialism in order to shed light on the dynamics of domination and resistance engendered by land grabbing. For this purpose, a literature review and documentary research were carried out, based on the information collected in the Land Matrix database and in specialized publications. As a result, the paper presents an overview of current transnational land acquisitions around the world followed by a post-colonialist re-interpretation of land grabs, with the aim of identifying the key features of postcolonial domination inherent in land grabbing legitimation discourse, along with the main forms of local and global resistance to these processes. For a better understanding of land grabbing dynamics, this thesis has focused on the case of Mozambique, one of the African countries which have been most engaged in attracting foreign investment into the agricultural sector in recent years. / Esta dissertação aborda a questão das aquisições transnacionais de terra – doravante land grabbing ou land grabs – que se expandiram e ganharam visibilidade a partir de 2008, no contexto das crises alimentar, financeira e energética que eclodiram no biênio 2007-2008. A presente dissertação analisou a atual onda de aquisições transnacionais de terra na África Subsaariana, com ênfase para o caso de Moçambique, sob o prisma das perspectivas pós-colonialistas a fim de lançar luz sobre as dinâmicas de dominação e resistência engendradas pelo land grabbing. Para tanto, foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica e documental, ancorada nas informações colhidas na base de dados Land Matrix e nas publicações especializadas. Nesse sentido, o trabalho apresentou o panorama atual das aquisições transnacionais de terra no mundo seguido de uma releitura pós-colonialista dos land grabs, cujo objetivo foi identificar as principais manifestações da dominação pós-colonial presentes nos discursos de legitimação das apropriações de terra, juntamente com as principais formas de resistência local e global a esses processos. Para uma melhor compreensão dos processos de land grabbing, foi selecionado o caso de Moçambique, considerado pertinente por ser um dos países que mais têm atraído investimentos estrangeiros no setor agrícola nos últimos anos.

This paper examines and problematize the effects of biofuel production by focusing on local communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The premise lays in a critique of neoliberal thoughts of development and the concept of sustainable development. The establishment of biofuel production in SSA has been depicted to carry with it opportunities of development for the rural population. However, there have been a big interest from foreign actors looking to invest in sub-Saharan biofuel production which have raced concern for land grabbing. A conflict of interest has emerged between Southern and Northern interests. A literature study is used as the method to examine reported outcomes on local communities in the proximity of biofuel production in order to determine if sub-Saharan biofuel production is established for the development need of SSA or the interest of the North. To analyze the results a theoretical framework has been constructed from concepts of large-scale land acquisition (land grabbing), environmental justice and the four worldviews market liberalism, institutionalism, bioenvironmentalism and social greens. The paper concludes that the large-scale production of biofuels is highly problematic due to the risk of land grabbing and Northern mitigation schemes are based on Southern lands raises the question of environmental justice. Depending on which worldview one adopts there can be several explanations to why this occur.

This thesis examines the Chinese investment programme; the Belt and Road Initiative, through a post-colonial lens, to categorise whether it fits the postcolonial draining of emerging economies. The purpose of this research is to broaden the way we see post-colonial relationships and contribute to the notion that all advanced economies can have a draining relationship with emerging ones. This is done by examining the geographical and economical aspects of the BRI-projects in two states; Kenya and Sri Lanka, to detect draining. The thesis comes to the conclusion that China, through the Belt and Road Initiative, fits the post-colonial description of draining the examined states. The results hopefully mean a humble contribution to the broadening of what is included in the post-colonial theory.

The intertwined challenges of food insecurity, deforestation, and biodiversity loss remain perennial challenges in Ethiopia, despite increasing policy interventions. This thesis investigates smallholding farmers’ tree- and forest-based livelihoods and management practices, in the context of national development and conservation policies, and examines how these local management practices and policies transform the agriculture–forest mosaic landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. The thesis is guided by a political ecology perspective, and focuses on an analytical framework of ecosystem services (ESs) and disservices (EDs). It uses a mixed research design with data from participatory field mapping, a tree ‘inventory’, interviews, focus group discussions, population censuses, and analysis of satellite images and aerial photos. The thesis presents four papers. Paper I investigates how smallholding farmers in an agriculture–forest mosaic landscape manage trees and forests in relation to a few selected ESs and EDs that they consider particularly beneficial or problematic. The farmers’ management practices were geared towards mitigating tree- and forest-related EDs such as wild mammal crop raiders, while at the same time augmenting ESs such as shaded coffee production, resulting in a restructuring of the agriculture–forest mosaic. Paper II builds further on the EDs introduced in paper I, to assess the effects of crop raids by forest-dwelling wild mammals on farmers’ livelihoods. The EDs of wild mammals and human–wildlife conflict are shown to constitute a problem that goes well beyond a narrow focus on yield loss. The paper illustrates the broader impacts of crop-raiding wild mammals on local agricultural and livelihood development (e.g. the effects on food security and children’s schooling), and how state forest and wildlife control and related conservation policy undermined farmers’ coping strategies. Paper III examines local forest-based livelihood sources and how smallholders’ access to forests is reduced by state transfer of forestland to private companies for coffee investment. This paper highlights how relatively small land areas appropriated for investment in relatively densely inhabited areas can harm the livelihoods of many farmers, and also negatively affect forest conservation. Paper IV investigates the patterns and drivers of forest cover change from 1958 to 2010. Between 1973 and 2010, 25% of the total forest was lost, and forest cover changes varied both spatially and temporally. State development and conservation policies spanning various political economies (feudal, socialist, and ‘free market-oriented’) directly or indirectly affected local ecosystem use, ecosystem management practices, and migration processes. These factors (policies, local practices, and migration) have thus together shaped the spatial patterns of forest cover change in the last 50 years. The thesis concludes that national development and conservation policies and the associated power relations and inequality have often undermined local livelihood security and forest conservation efforts. It also highlights how a conceptualization of a local ecosystem as a provider of both ESs and EDs can generate an understanding of local practices and decisions that shape development and conservation trajectories in mosaic landscapes. The thesis draws attention to the need to make development and conservation policies relevant and adaptable to local conditions as a means to promote local livelihood and food security, forest and biodiversity conservation, and ESs generated by agricultural mosaic landscapes. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>