Turning Land into Capital

Development and Dispossession in the Mekong Region

Philip Hirsch editor Natalia Scurrah editor Kevin Woods editor K Sivaramakrishnan editor Michael B Dwyer editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Washington Press

Published:13th Sep '22

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Turning Land into Capital cover

Under the guise of development, land is being commodified and concentrated at the expense of the rural poor

In Southeast Asia reversals of earlier agrarian reforms have rolled back "land-to-the-tiller" policies created in the wake of Cold War–era revolutions. This trend, marked by increased land concentration and the promotion of export-oriented agribusiness at the expense of smallholder farmers, exposes the convergence of capitalist relations and state agendas that expand territorial control within and across national borders. Turning Land into Capital examines the contradictions produced by superimposing twenty-first-century neoliberal projects onto diverse landscapes etched by decades of war and state socialism.

Chapters in the book explore geopolitics, legacies of colonialism, ideologies of development, and strategies to achieve land justice in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. The resulting picture reveals the place-specific interactions of state and market ideologies, regional geopolitics, and local elites in concentrating control over land.

"This book is an important palliative to the recent ontological turn in environmental anthropology. It throws into sharp relief issues of power, inequality, and the commodification of nature that go beyond the intimacies of human-nature entanglement. Crafting a more-than-human perspective grounded in the dynamics of land capitalization and justice allows for a more robust approach to scholarship in this academic subfield and region...Furthermore, the volume is an outcome of collaborative scholarship engaged deeply in local and regional work."

* H-Net Reviews *

"Anyone familiar with this group of authors will not be surprised that Turning Land into Capital is incisive work, informed by a range of interdisciplinary perspectives and communicating the complexities of land politics with depth and clarity."

* Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography *

"A highly readable, insightful volume on land politics across the Mekong region today. Featuring detailed case studies, and grounded in a solid political ecological perspective, it is an essential read for scholars across the social sciences interested in the region. Additionally, it is extremely insightful for scholars who are thinking about land governance from multiple scales and comparatively across regions."

* Journal of Anthropological Research *

"...the book is geared towards experts in the region and could prove useful for a graduate seminar on development, land, or economy in Southeast Asia. It will be exceptionally rewarding for those of us conducting fieldwork on a smaller scale, where it is easy to lose sight of larger economic and political developments across the region."

* Pacific Affai

ISBN: 9780295750460

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 363g

264 pages