Bringing more agricultural land into production for biofuels and food crops will be necessary if we are to both fulfill our collective climate initiative goals and feed an increasing global population. The direct competition between land for food and land for biofuels has resulted in increased interest in identifying 'marginal lands' such that biofuels can be grown on land that does not threaten the food security of poor, rural communities. The term `marginal land' is also used by developing state governments to describe large swaths of land being leased to private or state-affiliated investors in what has been referred to by the international research community as the 'global land grab'. 'Marginal land', however, is defined and operationalized differently across users and anecdotal evidence shows that some lands classified as marginal are actually used by local communities. Empirical studies investigating these contested lands have not incorporated spatial information. The main objective of this thesis is to conduct a multi-scalar, spatially-explicit exploration of the marginal lands narrative. The first chapter investigates the ontology of the marginal land label as it is applied on a global/regional scale using a meta-analysis of four recent studies. The second chapter triangulates national-level geospatial information with information from semi-structured interviews to examine marginal lands allocated to Ethiopia's federal land bank as contested spaces. The third chapter uses a statistical analysis to identify the socio-political and biophysical determinants of banked lands on a subnational scale in Benishangul-Gumuz, Ethiopia. Results show that methods using remotely sensed information to identify marginal lands on a global/regional scale are qualitatively and quantitatively divergent and are limited in their usefulness in identifying available land for biofuels. The Ethiopia case study finds that the federal government is banking 'marginal land' for future investment that is more appropriately understood as 'land unused for commercial agriculture' and that they are contested spaces where the federal government stands to incur multiple benefits through their transformation to large-scale agriculture. I also find both biophysical and socio-political factors (i.e. ethnicity, agricultural practices) guide the federal government's decision regarding which land to target in the subnational region of Benishangul-Gumuz.

Three recent global economic trends are shifting forest livelihoods and ‘development’ intervention in Mozambique. These trends are China’s growing influence in Africa, large–scale land grabbing and climate change politics. Based on eighteen months of mixed–methods research between 2009 and 2011, this dissertation examines the interactions of these global trends with day–to–day social, political and ecological processes in two rural communities in Zambézia Province (central Mozambique)—one in the miombo woodlands of Maganja da Costa district and the other near expanding timber plantations in Gurué district. The community in Maganja da Costa is at the center of clashes between conservation groups and illegal loggers selling precious hardwoods to China. The community in Gurué is responding to a Presidential mandate for every local leader to establish ‘forests’ (predominantly exotic monocultures) that represent a dispersed form of land grabbing. Drawing on recent agendas within the field of feminist political ecology, the author highlights key encounters or ‘place–events’ (following Doreen Massey) that explain the complex historical, political and ecological dynamics shaping contemporary forest transformation in Zambézia. These place–events can only be understood through attention to bodies and identity performance, key sites where assemblages of power and meaning are enacted and negotiated. This approach provides insight into less visible dimensions of landscape change by moving beyond commodity chain analysis and local/national/global hierarchies of causality. Examples of place–events examined include: girls becoming women through scarification with battery acid in a forest grove; men singing about their boss’ wife as they haul timber; NGO staff distributing pesticide spray information pamphlets in an anti–malaria campaign and elite women beating their husbands for planting ‘government’ trees. Attention to bodily performances that fundamentally constitute these place–events demonstrates how interventions in the name of sustainable development play out and often fail. It also elucidates how some loggers are able to extract valuable timber more than others. In fact, local community members see all of these outsiders—despite their distinct ideologies—as equally foreign based on similar ‘outsider’ bodily comportment. Such embodied dynamics are political and cultural, and they should be a key concern for anyone involved in shaping the future of Mozambique’s forests. / 10000-01-01

Submitted by Pós graduação Relações Internacionais (ppgri@ufba.br) on 2018-09-26T20:42:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 SANTOS, 2018.PPGRI.UFBA. Dissertação.pdf: 2000676 bytes, checksum: 1595693e6dbced3bf3a2819901dff9de (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Setor de Periódicos (per_macedocosta@ufba.br) on 2018-09-28T18:56:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 SANTOS, 2018.PPGRI.UFBA. Dissertação.pdf: 2000676 bytes, checksum: 1595693e6dbced3bf3a2819901dff9de (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-28T18:56:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SANTOS, 2018.PPGRI.UFBA. Dissertação.pdf: 2000676 bytes, checksum: 1595693e6dbced3bf3a2819901dff9de (MD5) / FAPESB - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia / As crises alimentar, energética e financeira entre 2007 e 2008 potencializaram uma corrida pelo controle de terras agricultáveis, principalmente direcionada a países de renda baixa e média situados do Sul global. Este processo, movido por corporações, fundos de investimento, de pensão e governos, se popularizou pelos termos “land grab” e “land grabbing”, enquanto em português costuma atender pelas expressões “apropriação” ou “estrangeirização de terras”. Trata-se de uma dinâmica violenta associada a diversos episódios de expulsão de comunidades rurais e povos tradicionais de seus territórios, além da imposição de ameaças à segurança alimentar, ao acesso à terra e a impactos diversos sobre o meio ambiente. Com base em autores vinculados à Teoria Crítica Neogramsciana de Relações Internacionais, o estudo se concentra no processo de governança do land grabbing, buscando compreender, especificamente, como os agentes e estruturas interessados na continuidade desse processo buscaram sua legitimação por meio de dispositivos neoliberais de governança global. De caráter qualitativo e exploratório, a pesquisa se utilizou de documentos e relatórios disponibilizados por organizações internacionais, governos, ONGs e movimentos sociais rurais, além de bibliografia encontrada em livros e journals acadêmicos especializados. Ao fim, sugere-se que a legitimação da apropriação de terras se dá, em larga medida, através da despolitização do próprio fenômeno e dos mecanismos de regulação propostos para lidar com suas contradições. Palavras-chave: Land grab; Governança global; Neoliberalismo; / The food, energy and financial crisis between 2007 and 2008 potentialized a race for the control of agricultural land, mainly directed to middle and low-income countries of the global South. This process, moved by corporations, investment and pension funds, and governments, became popular by the terms of “land grab” and “land grabbing”, while in portuguese were translated into the expressions “apropriação” or “estrangeirização de terras”. This is a violent dynamic linked to a diversity of episodes of rural and traditional communities’ expulsions from their territory, as well as the imposition of threats to the food security, the access to land and a variety of impacts to the environment. Based on some authors and concepts associated with the Neogramscian Critical Theory of International Relations, the thesis focus on the governance of land grabbing, aiming to comprehend, specifically, how the agents and structures who have an interest in the maintenance of this process have worked to legitimize it through neoliberal global governance mechanisms. With a qualitative and exploratory profile, the research made use of documents and reports from international organizations, governments, NGOs and rural social movements, along with bibliography found in books and specialized academic journals. At the end, the thesis suggests that the legitimation of land grabbing occurs, largely, through the de-politization of the phenomena itself and through the mechanisms of regulation proposed to deal with its contractions. Keywords: Land grab; Global Governance; Neoliberalism.

Observing the current wave of large scale land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa, many have found it easy to call the situation land grab, the new form of neo colonialism in Africa. In Ethiopia, few underlining socio-economic and political currents have shaped the leasing of its arable land to both national and international investors in recent years. The Agricultural Development Led Industrialization strategy the country adopted in the early 1990s, followed with consecutive short-term strategic plans focused primarily on agriculture as the driver for the nation’s economic growth and structural transformation, have acted as the main underpinnings in the commercialization of its agricultural sector. These plans, though national in their making, have also been constructed in the context of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which put the deadline of 2015 to cut poverty in half of signee countries, of which Ethiopia is one. The Food Crisis of 2007/08, coupled with the global financial crisis of 2008, has meant that foreign direct investment in farmland has become the new phenomenon for long-term investment with speculation of substantial returns in the current uncertainty of food security and financial climate. There is a new food world order under way, one in which feeding one’s own population doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be cultivated at home. For a country like Ethiopia, one of the most food insecure and poorest country on earth, gambling on development based on foreign use of its most needed natural assets, both land and water, should not be looked over so passively.

This thesis is concerned with social policy during structural transformation, focusing on the case of Ethiopia. The thesis takes a realist, case-based approach to the study of social policy, which recognises that political actors construct the domain of 'social' policy within legitimising discourses in specific national-historical contexts. Social policy is a key aspect of state-society relations and an inherently political field of study. Consequently, the study integrates analysis of cleavages in domestic society along class and ethnic lines, the role of state organisations and international influences, and their impact on the social policy pronouncements by senior government officials and implementation of those policies on the ground. In the Ethiopian case, this approach highlights the centrality of land to social policy and state• society relations. In particular, state land ownership is a key part of the government's development strategy that aims to combine egalitarian agricultural growth with security for smallholders. Nevertheless, the failure to expand the use of productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs, which constitute key complements to the use of land for social objectives, has led to differentiation in social policy provision along class, gender, age and ethnic lines. Micro-level case studies link the land question to food security, including the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), and processes of agricultural commercialisation, notably the so-called 'global land grab'. A main argument of the thesis is that the Ethiopian government is attempting to manage social processes in order to minimise the social and political upheaval involved in structural transformation, and that social pol icy is a central means by which it does so. The development strategy requires social policies that enable the government to control the allocation of factors of production, necessitating restrictions on the rights of individuals and groups. As such, this strategy is intricately intertwined with political authority.

This paper studies the policy changes that have led to the design and early implementation of the land restitution program in Colombia. I use the land reform literature to frame land reform efforts in Colombia within the larger ideological discussion on land reform. The study maps out the roles of the main actors that influenced the actions of government regarding land reform and their role in shaping the present policies affecting land restitution. The paper argues that although the land restitution program provides an opportunity to initiate a peace building process and should be seriously considered as a measure to compensate the victims of the armed conflict, the present rural development model is an impediment to its success. Although, the more progressive coalition was able to achieve the approval of the land restitution program, the success of the program relies entirely on the wider rural development model being currently embraced in the country. The present rural development model puts an emphasis on the exploitation of extractive resources and other mega projects responding to global market demands; while illicit crops continue to provide an easy and profitable livelihood opportunity for many in the countryside. Such development does not support the livelihoods of returnees and thus does not compliment the land restitution program. The success of the land restitution program thus remains in doubt. The reason is that powerful actors support a neoliberal development model that continues to dominate the political agenda.

Nesta tese, analisamos o processo de formação da propriedade capitalista no estado do Amazonas. Para tanto, buscamos responder aos seguintes questionamentos: como estão distribuídas as terras no Estado? Como tem se constituído histórica e juridicamente a propriedade? Quais os mecanismos utilizados na apropriação privada da terra? Quais os sujeitos que rivalizam e de qual maneira ocorrem as disputas pela posse do território? A pesquisa partiu de trabalhos de campo e de levantamentos documentais, buscando garantir um compromisso com a realidade, tendo em vista que optamos pelo método materialista e seguimos com análise fundamentada em conceitos e teorias. Verificamos que a apropriação privada da terra surgiu da disputa territorial ainda nos primórdios da colonização europeia da região, caracterizada pelo genocídio de povos indígenas, e se prolongou até a década de 1980, com essa mesma característica. A apropriação privada da terra é também predominantemente realizada fora dos limites legais e não tem por prioridade a ocupação ou produção capitalista. A grilagem e o rentismo estão entre as principais características dos grandes imóveis. Outra característica é justamente a alta concentração fundiária. Essa conjuntura tem gerado importantes conflitos agrários envolvendo grileiros de terras e empresários capitalista, de um lado, e camponeses posseiros e povos indígenas, do outro, redundando em um quadro crônico de violência. / In this thesis, we analyze the process of formation of capitalist property in the State of Amazonas. For this purpose, we seek to answer the following questions: how are the lands distributed in the State? How has the property been historically and legally constituted? What are the mechanisms used in private ownership of land? What are the subjects who compete and in what way do the disputes for the possession of the territory occur? The research was based on fieldwork and documentary surveys, seeking to guarantee a commitment to reality, considering that we opted for the materialistic method, and followed with an analysis based on concepts and theories. We verified that the private appropriation of land emerged from the territorial dispute still in the early days of European colonization of the region, characterized by the genocide of indigenous peoples, and lasted until the 1980s, with the same characteristic. The private appropriation of land is also predominantly made outside the legal limits, and capitalist occupation or production is not a priority. Public land fraud and rentism are among the main characteristics of large properties. Another characteristic is precisely the high concentration of land. This situation has generated important agrarian conflicts involving land grabbers and capitalist entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and squatter peasants and indigenous peoples, on the other, resulting in a chronic situation of violence.

Faire du Foncier un fait économique total, et du capital le moteur du développement, c’est donner un blanc-seing à la marchandisation de la terre. Faut-il vraiment que le Mali cède ses terres agricoles et ses ressources foncières pour accéder au développement? Pour quel développement ? Le développement exige-t-il le sacrifice de l’agriculture familiale paysanne et des méthodes traditionnelles séculaires de gestion du foncier ? Depuis son accession à la souveraineté nationale en 1960, le Mali, pays pauvre de l’Afrique au Sud du Sahara cherche à atteindre mais en vain un essor économique, social et industriel et cela par tous les moyens, à l’exception de la mise en place d’un modèle endogène de développement. Dans cette quête, il a dû souscrire au modèle de développement dominant qui n’est autre que celui capitaliste, fragilisé depuis toujours et présentement par les conséquences de ses limites à savoir la succession des crises alimentaire, sociale environnementale financière. Si ce revers du capitalisme a eu des effets sociaux importants dans les pays du sud, il a également conduit certains pays émergents et auteurs de capitaux à s’accaparer des ressources naturelles des pays les plus pauvres. Pris en tenaille entre la préservation de ses spécificités socio-écologiques sur le plan foncier et son envie d’atteindre le développement durable, le Mali voit dans la marchandisation des ressources foncières à grande échelle une véritable aubaine. Ainsi, il va adapter son cadre juridico-politique d’accès aux ressources foncières (au risque de décalage, d’incohérence et de flou entre ses stratégies politiques et la réalité foncière) afin d’attirer de nouveaux acteurs. Il prend par la même occasion le risque d’exposer son peuple aux conséquences prévisibles (la spoliation des droits fonciers coutumiers, l’accroissement de la pauvreté rurale et des inégalités, la destruction de l’agriculture familiale…) de ce passage sans transition à une économie mondialisée alors que les enjeux fonciers bien maîtrisés se révèlent être une véritable stratégie de gestion équilibrée de tout développement et surtout du développement durable. / Making the land issue a total economic phenomenon and capital the driving force of development equates to giving free rein to the commodification of the land. Is it really necessary for Mali to sell off its agricultural land and its land resources to access development? For what development? Does development demand that family-run small farming operations and age-old, traditional land management methods be sacrificed? Ever since the country attained national sovereignty in 1960, Mali ‒ a poor country in sub-Saharan Africa ‒ has been seeking in vain to achieve rapid economic, social and industrial development by all the means available, with the exception of the deployment of an endogenous development model. In that quest, Mali has had to subscribe to the dominant development model which is none other than the capitalist model, made vulnerable as it always has been and still is at present by the consequences of its limitations, namely the succession of food, social, environmental and financial crises. If the downside of capitalism has had far-reaching social effects in the southern countries, it has also led certain emerging countries and providers of capital to grab the natural resources of the poorest countries. Caught between preserving its socioeconomic specificities in land terms and its desire to achieve sustainable development, Mali regards the large-scale commodification of its land resources as a real windfall. It is thus going to adapt its legal and political system of access to land resources ‒ at the risk of seeing a blurring of vision, discrepancy and inconsistency between its political strategies and the reality of the land issue ‒ in order to attract new stakeholders. In so doing, Mali runs the risk of exposing its people to the foreseeable consequences of the changeover without transition to a globalized economy, including notably the despoliation of customary law land rights, increased rural poverty and inequality, and the destruction of family-run farming operations, whereas proper control of the land issue is shown to be a true strategy for the balanced management of any development and above all of sustainable development.

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