IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v53y2021i8p1935-1951.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The company is here to do goodness to us: Imaginaries of development, whiteness, and patronage in Sierra Leone's agribusiness investment deals

Author

Listed:
  • Jules Bakker

    (University of Groningen, the Netherlands)

  • Caitlin Ryan

    (3647University of Groningen, the Netherlands)

Abstract

In this paper, we consider how references to ‘development’ are deployed to convince communities to lease their land to agribusiness investors in Sierra Leone. We argue that promises of development made by companies resonate with the aspirations for development that communities already have. The already existing ‘imaginaries’ of development, actual conditions of economic hardship and the material relations of power bound up in who does the ‘asking’ for land mean that communities need little convincing to give their land. Imaginaries of development are effective not only because of the promises of development themselves, but also because of how these imaginaries function through the role of coloniality – and ‘whiteness’ in particular. Analyses that focus only on the coercive power of elites in making land deals miss the degree to which companies’ promises of development fit into already existing imaginaries of a more prosperous future.

Suggested Citation

  • Jules Bakker & Caitlin Ryan, 2021. "The company is here to do goodness to us: Imaginaries of development, whiteness, and patronage in Sierra Leone's agribusiness investment deals," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(8), pages 1935-1951, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:8:p:1935-1951
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X211036914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X211036914
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X211036914?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White & Michael B. Dwyer, 2013. "Building the Politics Machine: Tools for ‘Resolving’ the Global Land Grab," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 44(2), pages 309-333, March.
    2. Lisa Denney, 2013. "Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development? The Challenge of Engaging Chiefs in DFID's Security Sector Reform Programme in Sierra Leone," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31(1), pages 5-25, January.
    3. Jacobo Grajales, 2020. "From war to wealth? Land policies and the peace economy in Côte d’Ivoire," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(163), pages 78-94, July.
    4. Caitlin Ryan, 2018. "Large-scale land deals in Sierra Leone at the intersection of gender and lineage," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 189-206, January.
    5. Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White & Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White, 2013. "Governing Global Land Deals: The Role of the State in the Rush for Land," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 44(2), pages 189-210, March.
    6. Jacobo Grajales, 2020. "From war to wealth? Land policies and the peace economy in Côte d’Ivoire [De la guerre à la prospérité ? Politiques foncières et économie de la paix en Côte d’Ivoire]," Post-Print hal-02553089, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Woods, Kevin M., 2020. "Smaller-scale land grabs and accumulation from below: Violence, coercion and consent in spatially uneven agrarian change in Shan State, Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Bennett, Nathan James & Govan, Hugh & Satterfield, Terre, 2015. "Ocean grabbing," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 61-68.
      • Wehner, Nicholas & Bennett, Nathan & Govan, Hugh & Satterfield, Terre, 2015. "Ocean grabbing," MarXiv bm6pf, Center for Open Science.
    3. Sara Balestri & Mario A. Maggioni, 2021. "This Land Is My Land! Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and Conflict Events in Sub-Saharan Africa," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 427-450, May.
    4. Hunsberger, Carol & Work, Courtney & Herre, Roman, 2018. "Linking climate change strategies and land conflicts in Cambodia: Evidence from the Greater Aural region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 309-320.
    5. Hennings, Anne, 2019. "Women in land struggles: The implications of female activism and emotional resistance for gender equity," GLOCON Working Paper Series 9, Freie Universität Berlin, Junior Research Group "Global Change – Local Conflicts?" (GLOCON).
    6. Nolte, Kerstin & Voget-Kleschin, Lieske, 2014. "Consultation in Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: An Evaluation of Three Cases in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 654-668.
    7. Rignall, Karen & Kusunose, Yoko, 2018. "Governing livelihood and land use transitions: The role of customary tenure in southeastern Morocco," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 91-103.
    8. Andrea P. Sosa Varrotti & Delia C. Ramírez & Paula C. Serpe, 2022. "Land grabbing and agribusiness in Argentina: five critical dimensions for analysing corporate strategies and its impacts over unequal actors," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Springer, vol. 103(4), pages 417-437, December.
    9. Sara B Pritchard & Steven A Wolf & Wendy Wolford, 2016. "Knowledge and the politics of land," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(4), pages 616-625, April.
    10. Femke van Noorloos & Christien Klaufus & Griet Steel, 2019. "Land in urban debates: Unpacking the grab–development dichotomy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(5), pages 855-867, April.
    11. Jenny E Goldstein, 2016. "Knowing the subterranean: Land grabbing, oil palm, and divergent expertise in Indonesia’s peat soil," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(4), pages 754-770, April.
    12. Baka, Jennifer & Bailis, Robert, 2014. "Wasteland energy-scapes: a comparative energy flow analysis of India's biofuel and biomass economies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59896, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. İnan, Canan Emek & Albulut, Koray, 2022. "Linking actors and scales by green grabbing in Bozbük and Kazıklı," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    14. Dell’Angelo, Jampel & D’Odorico, Paolo & Rulli, Maria Cristina & Marchand, Philippe, 2017. "The Tragedy of the Grabbed Commons: Coercion and Dispossession in the Global Land Rush," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Mălina & Petrescu, Dacinia Crina & Reti, Kinga-Olga, 2019. "My land is my food: Exploring social function of large land deals using food security–land deals relation in five Eastern European countries," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 729-741.
    16. Schenk, Mario, 2018. "Die Rolle des Staates in Konflikten um 'land grabbing' in Nordbrasilien," GLOCON Working Paper Series 8, Freie Universität Berlin, Junior Research Group "Global Change – Local Conflicts?" (GLOCON).
    17. Manda, Simon & Banda, Lizzy, 2023. "Seeing like the state? Customary land pressures and fracturing tenure systems in rural Zambia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    18. Laurence Roudart & Marcel Mazoyer, 2015. "Large-Scale Land Acquisitions: A Historical Perspective," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/221637, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    19. Kristina Lanz & Jean‐David Gerber & Tobias Haller, 2018. "Land Grabbing, the State and Chiefs: The Politics of Extending Commercial Agriculture in Ghana," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(6), pages 1526-1552, November.
    20. Scheidel, Arnim & Work, Courtney, 2018. "Forest plantations and climate change discourses: New powers of ‘green’ grabbing in Cambodia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 9-18.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:8:p:1935-1951. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.