But This is Different: An Exploration of the Framing of Land Grabbing

Abstract

From a sporadic few citations in academic journals prior to 2009, to numerous special edition journals, well-attended global conferences and the publication of hundreds of working and peer-reviewed papers today, the term “land grabbing” is ubiquitous in the rural studies literature today. Those within civil society responsible for popularising the land grab term say even they were surprised at how successful the term and its attendant political agenda has been in garnering attention and backing. Drawing on interviews with key social movement actors, document analysis and Snow and Benford’s theory of framing, this paper explores how the social movement organisations central to the process developed and popularised the land grabbing frame. I argue that research outputs, the stories of victims and academic involvement were central factors in the success of the frame.

Biographical Note

Dr. Nicolette Larder (University of New England, Australia)
Nicolette Larder is a lecturer in human geography at the University of New England. Her previous work has explored motivations behind urban food production, food justice and planning systems, large-scale investment in agricultural land in West Africa, and financialization in rural Australian. She currently works in the areas of financialization of everyday rural life and food sovereignty movements in Australia. Her work has been published in The Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Agrarian Change, Local Environment, and Agriculture and Human Values.