Workshop on Large-Scale Land Transactions

This workshop brings together a group of 14 scholars working on land transaction issues globally. Papers to be presented in this workshop investigate: 1) Land property rights and development; 2) Variations in patterns and outcomes of land transactions; and 3) Dynamics in causes and consequences of land transactions.

April 20, Dow Commons in Dana Building (4th Floor)

1:00 - 1:20 pm» Daniel Brown: Welcome and Introduction to NASA/NSF Projects at UMich

1:20 – 1:30 pm» Chuan Liao: What Do We Know about the ‘Global Land Rush’ After a Decade?

1:30 – 1:40 pm» Suhyun Jung: Quantitative Impact Assessment – Indicators and the use of observational and primary data

Session 1: Land property rights and development in India and Africa

2:10 – 2:25 pm» Namita Wahi: Understanding Conflict over Land Acquisition in India

2:25 – 2:40 pm» Sai Balakrishnan: Politics of Land Value: Infrastructures of Mobility and Uneven Geographies in Urbanizing India

2:40 – 2:55 pm» Alin Kadfak and Patrik Oskarsson: The Shifting Sands of Urban Governance: Coastal Land Struggles on a Peninsula of Peri-Urban Mangalore, India

2:55 – 3:25 pm» Discussion on papers (Leading Discussant: Miles Kenney-Lazar)

3:40 – 3:55 pm» Kennedy Gastorn: The Legal Status of Intergenerational Equity on Clan Lands in Mainland Tanzania

3:55 – 4:10 pm» Kelly Askew, Jevgeniy Bluwstein, Jens Friis Lund, Faustin Maganga, Christine Noe, Rie Odgaard and Howard Stein: Enclosed communities: multiple land pressures in Tanzania

4:10 – 4:25 pm» Laura German, Eunice Cavane, Carla Braga, and Almeida Sitoe: The Emergent Properties of the State and the Troubled Path to “Tenure Security” in Mozambique

4:25 – 5:00 pm» Discussion on papers (Leading discussant: Kelly Askew)


April 21, Dow Commons in Dana Building (4th Floor)

Session 2: Variations in patterns and outcomes of land transactions

8:30 – 8:45 am» Chuan Liao, Suhyun Jung, Arun Agrawal, and Daniel Brown: Spatial Patterns of Large-Scale Land Transactions: Number, Size, Context and Outcome in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Liberia and Peru

8:45 – 9:00 am» Kerstin Nolte and Martin Ostermeier: Labour Market Effects of Large-Scale Agricultural Investment – Conceptual Considerations and Estimated Employment Effects

9:00 – 9:15 am» Melvin Sheriff: Benefits, Challenges and Pitfalls of Large-Scale Agricultural Land Development in Liberia

9:15 – 9:30 am» Suhyun Jung, Chuan Liao, Arun Agrawal, and Daniel Brown: Quantitative Impact Assessment of Forestry Concessions on Livelihoods in Liberia

9:30 – 10:15 am» Discussion on papers (Leading discussant: Jens Friis Lund)


Session 3: Dynamics in causes and consequences of land transactions in SE Asia

10:45 – 11:00am» Ian G. Baird: Large-scale Land Concessions and Different Forms of Impacts and Responses in Southern Laos and Northeastern Cambodia

11:00 – 11:15 am» Nga Dao: Agrarian Change and Gendered Livelihoods in Northern Uplands Vietnam

11:15 – 11:30 am» Miles Kenney-Lazar: Industrial Tree Plantations, Political Power, and the Uneven Geographies of Socio-Environmental Change in Laos

11:30 – 11:45 am» Kevin M. Woods: Agrarian Political Ecologies of War, Displacement and Dispossession in Northern Myanmar

11:45 – 12:30 pm» Discussion on papers (Leading discussant: Sai Balakrishnan)

The workshop is co-sponsored by African Studies Center, Center for South Asian Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies and School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.