Suchergebnisse

This article proposes a framework for studying and understandinghow people make claims to land and other natural resources. Weargue that a focus on claim-making practices of actors (individuals,groups, institutions, companies, the state), and the processes ofappropriation, accessing and contestation that come along with it,best responds to Sikor and Lund's call to examine"the grey zone"between access and property. We identify and discuss three practi-ces of claim making:"grounding claims"is the practice of inscribingor altering the landscape with visible markers connoting ownership;"talking claims"is when speech is used strategically to make, justifyand contest claims; and"representing claims"is when claims are rep-resented on material objects (maps, title deeds) that are detachedfrom the resource. We contribute to debates on enclosure, large-scale land acquisitions and resource grabbing by providing a lens ofclaim making through which these processes can be conceptualized.

This article proposes a framework for studying and understandinghow people make claims to land and other natural resources. Weargue that a focus on claim-making practices of actors (individuals,groups, institutions, companies, the state), and the processes ofappropriation, accessing and contestation that come along with it,best responds to Sikor and Lund's call to examine"the grey zone"between access and property. We identify and discuss three practi-ces of claim making:"grounding claims"is the practice of inscribingor altering the landscape with visible markers connoting ownership;"talking claims"is when speech is used strategically to make, justifyand contest claims; and"representing claims"is when claims are rep-resented on material objects (maps, title deeds) that are detachedfrom the resource. We contribute to debates on enclosure, large-scale land acquisitions and resource grabbing by providing a lens ofclaim making through which these processes can be conceptualized.

This edited volume examines the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia. Changes in drylands are happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of often common land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. At the same time, powerful narratives about the drylands as wastelands' and their backward' inhabitants continue to hold sway, legitimizing interventions for development, security, and conservation, informing re-emerging frontiers of investment (for agriculture, extraction, infrastructure), and shaping new dryland identities. The chapters in this volume discuss the politics of change triggered by forces as diverse as the global land and resource rush, the expansion of new Information and Communication Technologies, urbanization, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the spread of violent extremism. While recognizing that changes are co-produced by differently positioned actors from within and outside the drylands, this volume presents the dryland's point of view. It therefore takes the views, experiences, and agencies of dryland dwellers as the point of departure to not only understand the changes that are transforming their lives, livelihoods, and future aspirations, but also to highlight the unexpected spaces of contestation and innovation that have hitherto remained understudied. This edited volume will be of much interest to students, researchers, and scholars of natural resource management, land and resource grabbing, political ecology, sustainable development, and drylands in general.