Resistance Against Land Grabs in Senegal: Factors of Success and Partial Failure of an Emergent Social Movement
ISBN: 978-1-78756-428-2, eISBN: 978-1-78756-427-5
Publication date: 13 March 2019
Abstract
In Senegal, the government has encouraged private investment in agriculture and biofuel production since the 2000s, generating several attempted or effective large-scale land acquisitions by domestic and international investors. In reaction to these projects, local groups of opponents have joined forces with national peasant organizations, civil society associations, and think tanks to resist perceived land grabs. This article examines the emergence of this social movement and explains why anti-land grabs campaigns were successful in halting some projects, but not successful in others. I argue that four main factors are at play: a strong mobilization of local populations measured by group cohesion and level of determination; the assistance of national and international NGOs in scaling up protests beyond the local level; the capacity of opponents to harness the support of influential elites and decision-makers; and the legal status of the land under contention. This paper draws on an analysis of secondary data, qualitative interviews, and field observations carried out in Senegal for several months from 2013 to 2018.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, and the International Development Research Center. I thank Dennis Galvan, Jeanne Koopman, Adrian Di Giovanni, Ibrahima Hathie, Papa Faye, Joanny Bélair, Jessica Soerdigo, the editor of this volume, two anonymous reviewers, as well as participants in the Global Political Economy dissertation workshop at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, session of discussion at IPAR, and Journées doctorales foncier in Montpellier for their cogent comments on earlier versions of this paper. Naturally, this study would not have been possible without the generous collaboration of several informants and experts in Senegal. My greatest debt goes to the late Souleye Kisito Faye, my research assistant to whom this paper is dedicated.
Citation
Gagné, M. (2019), "Resistance Against Land Grabs in Senegal: Factors of Success and Partial Failure of an Emergent Social Movement", The Politics of Land (Research in Political Sociology, Vol. 26), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 173-203. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520190000026012
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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