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Disputing the Global Land Grab: Claiming Rights and Making Markets Through Collaborative Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Matthew C. Canfield
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Abstract

As transnational movements contest economic inequalities and demand inclusion into global decision-making processes, new models of collaborative governance have proliferated. Promoters of this new mode of governance suggest that it can produce “win-win” solutions through inclusive, consensus-based processes, if these arenas of governance account for power asymmetries within their rules and processes. Yet, by focusing on procedural aspects of collaboration, these accounts overlook how power operates through the wider landscape of transnational legal pluralism. This article adapts the sociolegal disputing approach to the context of global governance through an extended case analysis of the “global land grab.” In doing so, it demonstrates how power operates through the competition to frame disputes across transnational arenas. I argue that the frame through which collaboration is ultimately deployed serves to reconstitute conflicts, thereby subordinating competing claims to the values of the dominant frame. This analysis ultimately suggests participation in collaborative governance comes with risks. By engaging in collaborative processes, activists face the possibility of constituting the very markets they seek to contest.

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Law & Society Review , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 994 - 1025
Copyright
© 2018 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

This article is based on research supported through a National Science Foundation Law and Social Science Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (SES# 1323743). It is the product of conversations, interviews, and participant observation with food sovereignty activists who were immensely generous with their time. I would like to thank Sally Engle Merry, Christine Harrington, Jothie Rajah, Ram Natarajan, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this paper. Responsibility for any misinterpretations is strictly my own. Human subjects review board approval was provided by New York University, IRB# 13-9445.

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