The Future Agriculture
BRICS Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies
Acronym
BICAS
Network
University or Research Institution
Focal point
Jun Borras, Ruth Hall, Sergio Sauer, Liu Juan, Ben McKay
Website
Location
Brazil
Working languages
English
Affiliated Organization
The Rise of the BRICS
The economic and political rise of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has far-reaching implications for global agrarian transformation as key sites of production, circulation and consumption of agricultural commodities. They are hosts to abundant cheap labour and natural resources, and to growing numbers of affluent consumers at the same time. The five BRICS countries are working both separately, and increasingly together, to shape international development agendas, both as partners in and potential alternatives to the development paradigms promoted by the established hubs of global capital in the North Atlantic and by international financial institutions.
The BICAS Initiative
BICAS is a collective of largely BRICS-based or connected academic researchers concerned with understanding the BRICS countries and their implications for global agrarian transformations. Critical theoretical and empirical questions about the origins, character and significance of complex changes underway need to be investigated more systematically. In taking forward this research agenda, we are building on and intending to extend the focus of existing knowledge about the BRICS.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 1 - 5 of 10Resistance to Land Grabbing and Displacement in Rural Cambodia
Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2015
Cambodia
In rural Cambodia indiscriminate, illegitimate and often violent land grabs in the form of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) have triggered myriad local responses by peasants facing evictions from private and communal lands. Drawing on fieldwork in Kratie and Koh Kong provinces, this chapter looks at the various forms of local resistance to government-sanctioned dispossession and displacement and discusses their effectiveness in bringing about socio-political and institutional change.
Transnationalization of Resistance to Economic Land Concessions in Cambodia
Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2015
Cambodia
The granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) over large parts of Cambodia has begun to attract global attention. It has also become a key focal point for civil society mobilization in Cambodia as well as for transnational activism directed at targets both within and outside Cambodia.
Different Regions, Different Reasons? Comparing Chinese land-consuming outward investments in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2015
Global
Cambodia
Laos
Myanmar
Thailand
Vietnam
Research indicates that key parameters of “land grabbing” differ across regions (e.g., ILC 2012) – particularly in view of who invests and/or when the bulk of investments occurred. At the same time, my review of the “land grab” literature since 2008 reveals that hardly any comparative assessments of “land grabbing” from a home country perspective exist that study whether and/or in which way and why “land grabs” of a single investor country differ across regions.
Land Acquisitions in Northeastern Cambodia: Space and Time matters
Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2015
Cambodia
Over the last decade, the highlands of Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia have witnessed massive land acquisitions and profound land use changes, mostly from forest covers to rubber plantation, which has contributed to rapidly and profoundly transform the livelihoods of smallholders relying primarily on family-based farming. Based on village- and households-level case studies in two districts of the province, this paper analyses this process and its mid-term consequences on local livelihoods. We first look at who has acquired land, where, how and at what pace.
Politics of Land Grabbing in the Borderland: A Case Study of Chongjom Border Market, Kabcheong District, Surin Province
Institutional & promotional materials
December, 2015
Cambodia
Thailand
Chongjom border is a contested area which reflects power-related relationship between center and its marginal space. From deserted borderland in the buffer zone during Khmer Rouge period, Chongjom becomes an emerging 4th ranking of cross-border trading between Thailand and Cambodia, where value of exporting goods have been increased up to 224.05 % in 2013. The politics of changes in land use and property relations change lead to widen of land grabbing in the area.