Paru le 24/05/2012 | Broché 64 pages
Professionnels
preface François Mazuyer | translated into English by Robert Reay-Jones
Since the Madagascan scandal of 2008, global public opinion has become deeply aware of the increasingly significant land sales that have resulted in millions of hectares of land in developing countries passing into foreign hands. The issue has become known as land grabbing. In this book of interviews conducted by Charlotte Castan, Gérard Chouquer provides the keys to understanding the global issue of land grabbing
Based on a close relationship between initiating countries operating through companies and hedge funds, host countries offering up supposedly vacant lands for sale, and international institutions acting as guarantors, a « new triangular trade » has emerged in which land has become the key object of trade. Recent land concessions have paved the way for a new geography of land ownership. This book aims to locate and to examine the dynamics of land grabbing, viewed as an opportunity or a threat.
Charlotte Castan is agrégée in geography and teaches in classe préparatoire. She has contributed to a number of publications in geography in the Publi-Topex series, including 2000 ans d'arpentage (2000) with Gérard Chouquer, Pierre Portet and Mireille Touzery and La Terre écrite (2001) with Philippe Pinchemel and Pierre Clergeot. Her more recent work has focused on sustainable development training though professional training courses and contributions to books such as Les développements durables (SCEREN - CNDP - 2011).
Gérard Chouquer is agrégé in history and a research director at the CNRS. A historian of land tenure, land ownership and land issues, Dr Chouquer is the author of Observatoire des formes du foncier dans le monde for FIEF and the editor-in-chief of the journal Études Rurales. He is also involved in research carried out by the Ordre des Géomètres-Experts through the association France International Expertise Foncière. He is a member of the technical committee Foncier et Développement at the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and at the French Agency for Development, and is a regular contributor to the work of the Fédération Internationale des Géomètres.
