The Global Land Grab

The last two years have seen a huge amount of academic policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of land grabbing - the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenceless and one about which multilateral organizations such as the World Bank as well as civil-society organizations and action NGOs have become increasingly vocal. This in-depth and empirically diverse volume - taking in case studies from across Africa Asia and Latin America - takes a step back from the hype to explore a number of key questions: Does the global land grab actually exist? If so what is new about it? And what beyond the immediately visible dynamics and practices are the real problems? A comprehensive and much-needed intervention on one of the most hotly contested but little-understood issues facing countries of the South today.