Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.

This volume renews the political sociology of land. Chapters examine dynamics of political control and contention in a range of settings, including land grabs in Asia and Africa, expulsions and territorial control in South America, environmental regulation in Europe, and controversies over fracking, gentrification, and property taxes in the USA.

Individual foreign investment in residential real estate by new middle-class and super-rich investors is re-emerging as a key issue in academic, policy and public debates around the world. At its most abstract, global real estate is increasingly thought of as a liquid asset class that is targeted by foreign individual investors who are seeking to diversify their investment portfolios. But foreign investors are also motivated by intergenerational familial security, transnational migration strategies and short-term educational plans, which are all closely entwined with global real estate investment. Government and local public responses to the latest manifestation of global real estate investment have taken different forms. These range from pro-foreign investment, primarily justified on geopolitical and macro-economic grounds, to anti-foreign investment for reasons such as mitigating public dissent and protecting the local housing market. Within this changing geopolitical context, this book offers a diverse range of case studies from Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia, Australia and Korea. It will be of interest to academics, policymakers and university students who are interested in the globalisation of local real estate. The chapters in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Housing Policy.

Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.

According to estimates by the International Land Coalition based at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 57 million hectares of land have been leased to foreign investors since 2007. Current research has focused on human rights issues related to inward investment in land but has been ignorant of water resource issues and the challenges of managing scarce water. This handbook will be the first to address inward investment in land and its impact on water resources in Africa. The geographical scope of this book will be the African continent, where land has attracted the attention of risk-taking investors because much land is under-utilised marginalized land, with associated water resources and rapidly growing domestic food markets. The successful implementation of investment strategies in African agriculture could determine the future of more than one billion people. An important factor to note is that Sub-Saharan Africa will, of all the continents, be hit hardest by climate change, population growth and food insecurity. Sensible investment in agriculture is therefore needed, however, at what costs and at whose expense? The book will also address the livelihoods theme and provide a holistic analysis of land and water grabbing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Four other themes will addressed: politics, economics, environment and the history of land investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. The editors have involved a highly diverse group of around 25 expert researchers, who will review the pro and anti-investment arguments, geopolitics, the role of capitalist investors, the environmental contexts and the political implications of, and reasons for, leasing millions of hectares in Sub-Saharan Africa. To date, there has been no attempt to review land investments through a suite of different lenses, thus this handbook will differ significantly from existing research and publication. The editors are Tony Allan, (Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, School of Oriental and African Studies and King’s College London); Jeroen Warner (Assistant Professor, Disaster Studies, University of Wageningen); Suvi Sojamo (PhD Researcher, Water and Development Research Group, Aalto University); and Martin Keulertz (PhD Researcher, Department of Geography, London Water Group, King’s College London).

This book examines the trend in Africa today to replace communal forms of customary tenure with Western-type private land tenure arrangements. These are markets in land that treat it as a commodity like any other, and forms of rural credit involving land as collateral. The author develops an aetiology of the main actors in this historic process which is already having huge human consequences. It is likely, if more widely implemented, to transform the face of African rural society towards landlessness, forced migration to big city slums, and rising inequality.

It's my land, I can do whatever I want with it. This is our neighborhood (or city, or park), and we should be the ones deciding how it's used. These are two strongly held - and diametrically opposed - views of appropriate land use. As John G. and Leslie Pickering Francis demonstrate, the debate about what to do with land is messy, complex, and often based on dangerously misguided principles. Raising the question of what rights owners - community, as well as individual - in fact have, the Francises argue that land stewardship transcends narrow spatial definitions. Their analysis of the discourse about property ownership offers a sophisticated, much-needed approach to land-use policy.

This volume provides up-to-date information on what has happened in the African ‘land rush’, providing national case studies for countries that were heavily impacted. The research will be a critical resource for students, researchers, advocates and policy makers as it provides detailed, long-term assessments of a broad range of national contexts. In addition to the specific questions of land and investment, this book sheds light on the broader international political economy of development in different African countries.

Interrogates the narratives of land grabbing and agricultural investment through detailed local studies that illuminate how these are experienced on the ground and the implications for Africa's land and agricultural economy.

A view of 'development at the margins' in the pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa highlights innovation and entrepreneurialism, cooperation and networking and diverse approaches rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. Through twenty detailed empirical chapters, the book highlights diverse pathways of development, going beyond the standard 'aid' and 'disaster' narratives.