Land holding and grabbing in today’s Latin America: A debate

Annelies Zoomers is Professor of International Development Studies (IDS) at Utrecht University and chair of the IS-academy on land governance (LANDac). She has published extensively about sustainable livelihoods; land policies and the impact of privatization, tourism and international migration. Her research project ‘Land market liberalization, land grabbing and sustainable space’ aims to explore current processes of land ‘foreignization’ (the ownership of land by foreign buyers).

Jun Borras is Associate Professor in Rural Development, Environment and Population at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands. Jun is also Adjunct Professor, COHD at China Agricultural University, Beijing; a Fellow for Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy in California, Coordinator for Initiatives in Critical Agrarian Studies (ICAS), and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS). Saturnino ‘Jun’ M Borras Jr. is a political activist and academic who has been deeply involved in rural social movements in the Philippines and internationally since the early 1980s. Borras was part of the core organising team that established the international peasant movement La Via Campesina and has written extensively on land issues and agrarian movements.