Abstract

Land, as the material and symbolic foundation of agrarian life, is situated at the heart of African studies. Debates over land access and control have grown in salience and urgency in recent years in the context of large-scale land acquisitions. In the wake of the global food, fuel, and financial crises of 2007–2008, an unusual and heterogeneous group of actors—including foreign and national governments, private corporations, as well as individual and institutional investors—joined the rush for land in the global South to produce and/or to speculate on agricultural commodities.