Land Grabbing in Latin America: Another Natural Resource Curse?

Agostina Costantino

Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, 2014, vol. 3, issue 1, 17-43

Abstract: In recent years, land grabbing has become widespread in Latin America, following similar trends in Africa. Multilateral agencies have sought to explain this phenomenon by arguing that these investments in land are driven by the rich endowments of natural resources of the countries in the region. This article argues that this explanation is insufficient: the rich endowment of natural resources in Latin America cannot explain the rising transfer of land to foreign investors, as if it were a natural curse. By contrast, the deepening of development models based almost exclusively on the exploitation of these resources seems to be the key, such that the role of states becomes essential to the explanation. In fact, the emergence of many self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ or ‘left’ governments in the region has not reversed the established structural dependency, based on an extractivist development model, but has deepened it.

Keywords: land grabbing; Latin America; accumulation patterns; natural resources; new extractivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:agspub:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:17-43

DOI: 10.1177/2277976014530217

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