The drama of the grabbed commons: anti-politics machine and local responses

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nexus between old and new commons, anti-politics, and Corporate Social Responsibility measures in the context of on-going land grabbing. Detailed case studies in Ghana, Malawi, Morocco, and Tanzania show that powerful discourses of development, women's empowerment, and wasteland productivity increase serve as anti-politics machines that hide the fact that winners are few and losers many. Despite differential bargaining power mediated by class, age, lineage, or gender, some actors manage to take advantage of the situation: contrary to the often used tragedy metaphor, we argue that we are faced with an open-ended ‘drama of the commons’ which is still unfolding.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• anti-politics machine
• commons grabbing
• large-scale land acquisition
• new commons

Acknowledgments

This paper is an output of a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation [grant 10001A_152773]. The authors thank the researchers who contributed to the project: Timothy Adams, Désirée Gmür, Kristina Lanz and Sarah Ryser. The authors also acknowledge support from the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS) through the research project ‘The Effects of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA) on Households in Rural Communities of the Global South: Gender Relations, Decision Making and Food Security’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper is an output of a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation [grant 10001A_152773].

Notes on contributors

Jean-David Gerber

Jean-David Gerber is an associate professor at the Institute of Geography of the University of Bern. He holds a postgraduate degree in Urban Development, Resources Management and Governance (2004) from the University of Lausanne and a PhD in Public Administration (2005) from the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP). His current research focuses on land policy, housing policy and large-scale land investments with a special emphasis on (de)commodification processes. Email: [email protected]

Tobias Haller

Tobias Haller is Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. He holds a PhD (2001) and a Habilitation (2007) in Social Anthropology from the University of Zurich. He has specialized on economic and ecological anthropology with a focus on New Institutionalism and Political Ecology. He is working on issues such as the management of the commons, institutional change, conservation, development and participation, transnational companies, environmental perceptions, mining and large-scale land acquisitions. Email: [email protected]