Small Grant Recipients

The Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) is a network initiated by five university-based research institutions with the purpose of promoting
'engaged research' on the recent explosion of (trans) national commercial and corporation-driven land transactions. In-depth and
systematic enquiry has become urgent and necessary in order to have deeper, meaningful and productive debates around this issue.

The LDPI has launched a global small grants programme to produce solid evidence and detailed, field-based research. PLAAS is coordinating the
LDPI small grants programme in Africa, and has awarded 20 small grants to early career scholars to document land deals centred on food,
biofuels, minerals, forestry and conservation that are unfolding in 14 different African countries. The 20 grantees for Africa are:

Maura Andrew (Mozambique and Sierra Leone)

Land deals associated with large scale commercial biofuel in Africa: The nature and dynamics of the deals and potential impacts on local communities

Claire Bedelian (Kenya)

Conservancy land leases adjacent to the Maasai Mara National Reserve: What impacts on Maasai pastoral livelihoods?

Lila Buckley (Senegal)

The rice farmer and the sesame king: A case study of Chinese agribusiness in Senegal

Gavin Capps (South Africa)

Differentiation, dispossession and struggle: The case of the BaFokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine, North West Province, South Africa

Michael Chasukwa (Malawi)

Dispossessing the peasant: An investigation of the political economy of global land grabs in Malawi post 1993 and their policy implications on food security

Lauren Coyle (Ghana)

Community rights and the ambivalence of authority: Timber, gold and the violent fashioning of the artisan in Ghana

David Deng (Sudan)

An examination of community consultations in large-scale land acquisitions in southern Sudan

Kathleen Guillozet (Ethiopia)

Struggles over forest access and the re-emerging trend of foreign investment in Ethiopia’s natural forests: a case study of a forest enterprise in West Arsi, Oromia

Mazibuko Jara (South Africa)

The policy economy dynamics, food regime impacts and policy implications of large-scale Eastern Cape land transactions

Ngeta Kabiri (Tanzania)

Wildlife conservation and land acquisitions: a case study of the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust

Hygin Faust Kakai (Benin)

Research on political dimensions of large-scale land transactions in Benin

Martin Keulertz (Sudan)

The drivers and actors in large-scale farmland acquisitions in Sudan

Tom Lavers (Ethiopia)

The role of foreign investment in Ethiopia’s smallholder-based agricultural development strategy

Christopher Mahonge (Tanzania)

Transformation of traditional formal and informal land governance systems and local coping strategies in light of land deals transactions

Patience Mutopo (Zimbabwe)

Gendered dimensions of land and rural livelihoods: The case of new settler farmer displacement at Nuanetsi Ranch, Mwenezi District, Zimbabwe

Phil Rene Oyono (Cameroon)

Transnational agrarian capitalism and the emergence of local agrarian elites in the coastal region of Cameroon; Keys to understanding, issues and lessons for theory

Caroline Seagle (Madagascar)

Contesting and legitimizing land claims in Southeast Madagascar: A multinational mining company, conservationists, state officials and ‘local’ communities

Leah Temper (Kenya)

‘Land grabbing’ and livelihoods in the Tana Delta, Kenya

William Tsuma (Ghana)

The politics of land compensation negotiations in Tarkwa’s gold mining sector of Western Ghana

PLAAS