Land Grabbing and International Political Economy: Towards a Critical Neo-Gramscian Theoretical Model of Land Governance in Latin America

Abstract

The vigorous debate on global land grabbing within Critical Agrarian Studies contrasts with the incipient analyses from International Political Economy (IPE). This divergence has overshadowed the multi-scalar nature of the power relations that shape land governance, and consequently its effects on land grabbing. For this reason, this paper provides a critical theoretical model of land governance based on Robert Cox’s historical structures approach to understand the causes of land grabbing in Latin American countries. It is argued that this model renders visible the articulation of local and global processes driving land grabbing because it foregrounds the power relations at multiple scales that shape decisions on land access, use and control, as well as the conflicts inherent to them. This demonstrates that, on the one hand, land governance structures in Latin America play a hegemonic role since they express and develop the global agricultural model that promotes land grabbing. On the other hand, social resistance highlights that land governance simultaneously possesses a potential for change. As a result, knowledge about land grabbing is enhanced through a dialogue between the two fields of study.

Proyectos chinos en infraestructura en Argentina y mecanismos de acaparamiento de tierras: un análisis desde la gobernanza de la tierra

“…Revista 96.2 y de poder (Machado Araóz, 2013, p. 130). De esa forma, la gobernanza de la tierra debe ser estudiada en influencia recíproca con el régimen extractivista en que se desarrolla, lo que convierte no solo al Estado a nivel nacional y subnacional, sino también a los actores privados ligados a la explotación y extracción de la naturaleza en actores clave en las relaciones de poder que configuran la gobernanza (Mora, 2022).…”