The challenge of locating land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation politics within a social justice perspective: towards an idea of agrarian climate justice

Abstract

The global land rush and mainstream climate change narratives have broadened the ranks of state and social actors concerned about land issues, while strengthening those opposed to social justice-oriented land policies. This emerging configuration of social forces makes the need for deep social reforms through redistribution, recognition, restitution, regeneration and resistance – book-ended by the twin principles of ‘maximum land size’ (‘size ceiling’) and a ‘guaranteed minimum land access’ (‘size floor’) – both more compelling and urgent, and, at the same time, more difficult than ever before. The five deep social reforms of socially just land policy are necessarily intertwined. But the global land rush amidst deepening climate change calls attention to the linkages, especially between the pursuit of agrarian justice on the one hand and climate justice on the other. Here, the relationship is not without contradictions, and warrants increased attention as both unit of analysis and object of political action. Understanding and deepening agrarian justice imperatives in climate politics, and understanding and deepening climate justice imperatives in agrarian politics, is needed more than ever in the ongoing pursuit of alternatives.

Keywords:

• Land politics
• climate change
• land rush
• Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)
• Myanmar
• Cambodia

Acknowledgement

The research for this paper benefited from the support of the research project “Mosaic: Climate change mitigation policies, land grabbing and conflict in Cambodia and Myanmar” funded by the Dutch NWO, as well as the Myanmar Programme of the Transnational Institute (TNI). It has benefited from years of interactions and discussiona with grassroots activists in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines too numerous to name and thank here. Finally, we would like to thank Lyda Forero of TNI for her very helpful comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this article appeared as a Transnational Institute (TNI) working paper (Borras and Franco 2018).

Notes

1. World Bank, World Development Report 2008.

2. For a critical review, see Akram-Lodhi, “(Re)imagining Agrarian Relations,” 1145–61.

3. Fairhead et al., Green Grabs.

4. World Bank, World Development Report 2008.

5. Deininger and Bayerlee, Rising Global Interest.

6. For a critique, see Borras, Franco and Wang, “Challenge of Global Governance,” 161–79.

7. Brockington et al., “Conservation, Human Rights,” 250–2; Castree, “Commodifying What Nature?” 273–97; Arsel and Buscher, “Nature™ Inc.,” 53–78.

8. Brady, “Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn,” 3–11.

9. Among the more systematic treatments on impact, theoretically and empirically, are Cotula et al., “Testing Claims,” 903–25; Zoomers and Otsuki, “Addressing the Impacts,” 164–71.

10. Peluso and Lund, “New Frontiers of Land Control,” 667–81; Schoenberger, Hall and Vandergeest, “What Happened When,” 697–725; Park and White, “Gender and Generation.”

11. See World Bank, Climate Change Action Plan; FAO, Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook; FAO, Climate-Smart Agriculture: Policies. For critical reflections, see Newell and Taylor, “Contested Landscapes”; Taylor, “Climate Smart Agriculture.”

12. World Bank, Climate Change Action Plan, 25–8.

13. Springate-Baginski, “Decriminalising agro-forestry: A primer on shifting cultivation in Myanmar,” 1.

14. World Bank, Climate Change Action Plan, 25–8.

15. Franco and Monsalve, “Why Wait for the State?”; Franco et al., “Just Standards,” 341–59.

16. World Bank, Climate Change Action Plan, 25.

17. Deininger and Bayerlee, Rising Global Interest.

18. Wolford et al., “Governing Global Land Deals,” 189–210.

19. Woods, “Legacy Landscapes.”

20. For background information and analysis, see: Transnational Institute, Assessment of 6th Draft; Faxon, “In the Law”; Mark, “Are the Odds,” 443–60.

21. For relevant analysis, see: Malseed, “Networks of Noncompliance,” 365–91; Woods, “Ceasefire Capitalism,” 747–70; Woods, “Legacy Landscapes”; Franco et al., Meaning of Land in Myanmar.

22. Transnational Institute, “Re-Asserting Control.”

23. Woods, “Ceasefire Capitalism.” For background information and analysis, see: Transnational Institute, Neither War Nor Peace; Transnational Institute, Developing Disparity.

24. Hunsberger et al., “Climate Change Mitigation,” 305–24.

25. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State; Fox, The Politics of Food in Mexico.

26. Vellema et al., “The Agrarian Roots,” 298–320.

27. Tarrow, Power in Movement.

28. Bulkeley and Newell, Governing Climate Change.

29. Borras et al., “The Rise of Flex Crops,” 94.

30. Ibid., 93–115.

31. McKay et al., “Political Economy of Sugarcane Flexing,” 195–223.

32. Rutten et al., “Smallholder Bargaining Power,” 891–917.

33. Pye and Bhattacharya, Palm Oil Controversy; Montefrio and Dressler, The Green Economy.

34. Woods, “CP Maize Contract Farming.”

35. Heynen and Robbins, “Neoliberalization of Nature,” 5–8; Corbera, “Problematizing REDD+,” 612–19; Mahanty et al., “Social Life of Forest Carbon,” 661–4.

36. Scheidel and Work, “Large-Scale Forest Plantations.”

37. Work and Thuon, “Inside and Outside the Maps,” 360–77.

38. Milne, “Under the Leopard’s Skin,” 323–39; Franco, “The Right to Land at Crossroads in Myanmar”; Franco et al., “The Meaning of Land”; Dressler et al. “The Impact of Swidden Decline,” 1–20.

39. Dwyer, “The Formalization Fix?” 903–28.

40. Hunsberger et al., “Climate Change Mitigation,” 305–24.

41. Lamb and Dao, “Perceptions and Practices,” 395–413.

42. “For a related treatment, see Martinez-Alier et al., ‘Is There an Environment Justice Movement?’

43. For broader treatment, refer to Fraser, “Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics.”

44. This broadly builds on Ribot’s work on vulnerability and climate, see “Cause and Response.”

45. Harris, Global Ethics and Climate Change, 35–6.