International Development Policy| Revue internationale de politique de développement

摘要: A growing body of scientific evidence on large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) is helping to inform the heated debate regarding this rapidly unfolding phenomenon. Some researchers—particularly those using qualitative, in-depth case studies—have examined land-acquisition processes within the dynamics of agrarian change and larger political-economic shifts. Other researchers have striven to establish quantitative inventories of LSLAs to improve our understanding of the scale and dimensions of land acquisitions at the national (Görgen et al., 2009; Schönweger et al., 2012; Üllenberg, 2009), regional (Friis and Reenberg, 2010), or global level (Anseeuw et al., 2012; Cotula, 2012; Deininger and Byerlee, 2011). Based on such inventories, the World Bank has deemed 445 million hectares (ha) of land worldwide to be ‘marginal land’that could benefit from agricultural investments because it is not forested or under protection and has population densities below 25 people per km2 (Deininger and Byerlee, 2011).