Resource grabbing in the global south: a comparative analysis of land, water and ocean grabbing

Dosu, Benjamin (2016) Resource grabbing in the global south: a comparative analysis of land, water and ocean grabbing. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of different types of resource grabbing, which refers to rapidly changing patterns of resource access and control occcuring around the world. This comparative analysis aims to identify key features and areas in resource grabbing that could be addressed for the pur[p]oses of policy formulation and implementation. Resource grabbing involving land, water and ocean resources has generated new debates in academic and policy literatures. This thesis uses theoretical insights from political economy and political ecology to advance these debates by identifying various actors, motives, institutions and effects of resource grabbing. Drawing on an extensive review of the literature that includes a range of examples from areas of the Global South, the research established that resource grabbing is propelled by the interests of various political and economic actors in a context of weak institutions and institutional frameworks. A political ecology analysis reveals that resource grabbing processes have invariably had negative effects on grabbees, those actors who had prior access to or control over resources grabbed by other actors. This thesis established that natural resources are controlled from prior resource holders with a stated purpose of conservation and efficiency but with hidden purpose to actually satisfy the interests investors and the powerful in society. This control of resources subjects prior holders to marginalization and puts them at risk in sustaining themselves. In some of the cases of resource grabbing as reviewed in this thesis, changing resource control patterns have resulted in environmental conflicts and violence. The thesis proposes that states and policy makers adopt meaningful human rights approaches to natural resource management as a major pathway towards curbing land, water and ocean grabbing. The thesis proposes that a political economy analysis of actors, their interests and institutional context is key not only for developing an understanding resource grabbing as a problem but also for establishing policies aimed at protecting natural resources and marginalized peoples from grabbing.

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