Dispossessed: Exploring the Factors That Enable Post-Disaster Land Grabs

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to better understand what factors produce an enabling environment for
land grabs after a disaster. Looking at eight selected case studies, this research tests the role of land
tenure security, private capital investment and global financial institutions, and gender. The factors
are tested with a mixed methodology: proxy indicators are analyzed quantitatively, and case study
literature is reviewed qualitatively. This research found that none of these factors were able to
explain why post-disaster land grabs happen in some places, and not others. This finding suggests
that either the current research does not yet understand what factors produce an enabling
environment for post-disaster land grabs or there are insufficient means to test the veracity of the
hypothesis. Future research is needed to better understand this phenomenon that analyses land
grabbing as a complex, emerging result.

Popular Abstract

This research sought to understand which factors produce an enabling environment for
post-disaster land grabs, looking specifically at the effects of land tenure security, global
financial institutions, and gender-specific vulnerability. This research could not find a factor that
was uniformly important in each case study, suggesting that the understanding of this
phenomenon should be complexified and studied as an emerging result. Hampered by data
limitations, this thesis suggests further research on land tenure security measurement tools,
the role of private capital and financial institutions in disaster recovery decisions, and less
gender-blind disaster research.
Access to land is a means of physical and economic security, shelter, food production,
and cultural and community belonging. When people are dispossessed of their land, particularly
following a disaster, they are more vulnerable. There are disparate academic understandings
around why post-disaster land grabs happen and how to prevent them from happening -- this
research brings these disparate perspectives together, testing them together. Specifically, the
research looked at whether or not land tenure insecurity, open markets available to global
financial institutions, and gender-specific vulnerability created an enabling environment for
post-disaster land grabs.
To test these hypotheses, his thesis closely studied eight selected case studies with a mixed
methodology: proxy indicators are analyzed quantitatively and case study literature is reviewed
qualitatively.
This research found that none of the three factors studied were able to uniformallu explain why
post-disaster land grabs happen in some places, and not others. This finding suggests that
either the current research does not yet understand what factors produce an enabling
environment for post-disaster land grabs, and perhaps that there is insufficient data to test the
veracity of the hypotheses. Future research is needed to better understand this phenomenon
that analyses land grabbing as a complex, emerging result. Further, research on land tenure
security measurement tools, the role of private capital and financial institutions in disaster
recovery decisions, and less gender-blind disaster research is needed.

• author: Lightman, Taylor McCammon
• supervisor: Misse Wester
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20201
• year: 2020
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Social Sciences
• keywords: Land Grab, Land Tenure, Land Tenure Security, Gender, Globalization, Neoliberalism, Dispossession
• language: English
• id: 9020098
• date added to LUP: 2020-06-22 11:37:41
• date last changed: 2020-06-22 11:37:41