The Return of Land Politics: New Imaginaries, Debates and Challenges

Land has returned as a foundational issue in global politics. The inexorable and intersecting processes of climate change, population expansion and urbanisation are placing growing and competing demands on land. While the tensions between urban development and the protection of the environment are by no means new, they have increased urgency under the pressures of housing crises, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and food and water (in)security. This creates conditions for political ruptures regarding the proper use, ownership and development of land as well as the associated distribution of risks and benefits. This poses significant and complex governance challenges as policymakers seek to balance competing claims on land to achieve multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives. In doing so, they must confront the institution of landownership and the power of landowners to shape or restrict strategies aimed at addressing these crises. Furthermore, the role of land in market economies is evolving as it becomes increasingly commodified, assetised and financialised – most obviously in its residential and agricultural forms. While land markets have existed for centuries, the marketisation of land has taken on new forms under the conditions of late-stage neoliberalism. It is now embedded in various ways in contemporary political economies such that there is renewed critical attention on its structural role in shaping the political fortunes of political parties and processes of urban development, food production and the commodification of nature. This creates conditions for political ruptures concerning the economic, social and environmental consequences of the trade and ownership of land and the inequalities this engenders. It has also prompted policymakers to refocus attention on land, land rents and their revenue raising potential for states via land and property taxation and land value capture. This all speaks to evolving and competing land imaginaries. While land is resolutely material, its meanings are socially constructed. Whatever meanings predominate in policy and material practice are fundamentally shaped by the power relations that structure who controls land and how policy is made and enacted. Politics provides the arena within which competing meanings of land are governed and contested. The objective of the Section is therefore to examine these contestations and explore the ways in which land shapes, and is shaped by, contemporary political economies. The Section builds on a 2024 ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop entitled “Exposing the deep politics of land: conceptual contestations in land debates” organised by Section Chair Edward Shepherd. Potential panels could include the below, but we welcome proposals for panels on related topics: Agrarian Land Politics: Food (In)security and Rural Economies: This panel could examine the return of the land question in agrarian politics, with a particular focus on how transformations in the ownership and management of rural land impact food production models and rural livelihoods. Possible topics could include: rural land reform and redistributions of ownership, the impact of land assetisation on farming and food production models, synergies/conflicts between food and land policy, and the intersection of agricultural and environmental land politics. The Politics of Land as Property: Ownership, Power and Inequality: This panel could examine histories and contemporary forms of land ownership and how these structure contemporary political economies via their influence on political power, social hierarchies and economic inequalities. Possible topics could include: the historical and political roots of contemporary land ownership structures, the comparative politics of the influence of landowners on social and economic outcomes, the politics of alternative land ownership models. The Politics of Land as Home: Housing, Belonging and Crisis: This panel could examine the politics of land as home, with a particular focus on the socio-political dimensions of housing land. Possible topics could include: the role of land in political constructions of the housing crisis, communally owned land and housing delivery, land assetisation and the housing crisis. The Politics of Land and Technology: Digital Mapping, Surveillance and Ownership: This panel could examine how technological advancements and technology companies are reshaping the politics of land governance and property rights. Topics could include: surveillance technologies and their impact on indigenous land claims, the politics of Prop-Tech and its impact on land governance, the role of technology in exacerbating or addressing the opacity of land ownership and land markets. The Politics of Land Regulation: This panel could examine the politics of policymaking and policy implementation regarding the governance of land use, taxation and urban development. Possible topics could include: the political economy of land value capture, the politics of land and property policymaking, the role of landownership in structuring land policy. The Politics of Land as Colony: Colonial Legacies and Transformations: This panel would examine contemporary political tensions arising from colonial legacies. Key topics could include: the impact of historical dispossession on contemporary land ownership, the politics of post-colonial land reform and restitution, the politics of land migration and territorial claims. Land and Environmental Politics: Development, Ownership and Conservation: This panel could focus on the political ecology of land and the tensions and contradictions arising from land as nature versus land as asset and commodity as expressed via the politics of conservation and environmental protection. Possible topics could include: conflicts between urban development and biodiversity enhancement, indigenous stewardship of land, conflicts surrounding the acquisition and use of land for environmental projects. Selected References Blomley, N. (2004). Unsettling the city: Urban land and the politics of property. New York: Routledge. Cox, A. (1984) Adversary politics and land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dobeson, A., & Kohl, S. (2023) The moral economy of land: from land reform to ownership society, 1880–2018, Socio-Economic Review, 22(2): 737–764. Guldi, J. (2022). The long land war: The global struggle for occupancy rights (Yale Agrarian Studies). New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Linklater, A. (2015). Owning the earth: The transforming history of land ownership. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury. Shepherd, E., & Wargent, M. (2024). Embedding the land market: Polanyi, urban planning and regulation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 56(3): 905-926.https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X231203484 Sippel, SR, Visser, O. (2021). Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: Materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’. Agriculture and Human Values, 38: 271–282. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10152-3 Ryan-Collins, J., Lloyd, T., & Macfarlane, L. (2017). Rethinking the economics of land and housing. London: Zed Books.