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" The Politics of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: State Support, Community Responses, and Variations in Corporate Land Control in Senegal "
Gagné, Marie
Teichman, Judith
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1055349
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| Doc. No
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TL54466
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| Main Entry
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Gagné, Marie
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| Title & Author
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The Politics of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: State Support, Community Responses, and Variations in Corporate Land Control in Senegal\ Gagné, MarieTeichman, Judith
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| College
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University of Toronto (Canada)
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| Date
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2020
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| Note
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311 p.
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| Abstract
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Over the last two decades, Senegal has experienced an unprecedented wave of large-scale land acquisitions. Despite the apparent surge, however, many of the reported spectacular land deals never materialized, have been facing major operational difficulties, or collapsed altogether. This observation was the starting point of this doctoral investigation, which asked: What factors explain the variations in the capacity of external investors to acquire and maintain control over land for the conduct of their agribusiness projects in Senegal? It is the primary contention of this dissertation that central state responses to investors critically shape corporate land acquisition and control. The governments of both Presidents Abdoulaye Wade (in power from 2000 to 2012) and Macky Sall (in power since 2012) have encouraged private investments in the agricultural sector and extended help to facilitate corporate land acquisition and control. But, contrary to expectations, state support for seemingly powerful investors has not been systematic and steady. In particular, the government has to a large extent been responsive to social opposition and has ended controversial land projects even though they squarely aligned with government priorities. If, among the myriad actors involved in land deals in Senegal, the central government has the greatest capacity to guarantee corporate land control, state behaviour is itself moulded by social interactions and political struggles that take place within interlocking arenas of power at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The combination of actors’ normative positions, objectives, resources, and strategies define their bargaining power, that is their capacity to affect land control outcomes. Based on a documentary analysis of private collections and public materials, 309 in-depth qualitative interviews with key actors, and sustained field observations in Dakar and the countryside, this dissertation advances an original analytical framework that takes into consideration the multilayered configurations of power shaping corporate land control. By grasping how external investors handle their insertion in complex arenas of power, this dissertation reframes our current understanding of the so-called “scramble for land,” and illustrates that Africa is not as amenable to corporate takeover as usually pictured by both proponents and critics of industrial agriculture.
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| Descriptor
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African studies
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Political science
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Sociology
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Teichman, Judith
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University of Toronto (Canada)
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