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| 1 |
ID:
133114
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2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Enclosure, dispossession and displacement loom large in current debates about the recent boom in transnational farmland deals, and about Chinese agribusiness for export in particular. Often under-examined, however, are the ways that legacies of geopolitical conflict shape the inevitably uneven distribution of enclosure, dispossession and displacement. This paper constructs a case of these 'micro-geopolitical' legacies by examining a Chinese rubber planting 'promotion' project in northwestern Laos's emerging 'Golden Quadrangle' development region. It argues that longstanding concerns about security inform the ways that local authorities deploy investment projects that are otherwise seen as examples of 'foreign' land grabbing. Further, it shows that while the geographical aims of foreign agribusiness mesh with state-mediated resettlement efforts (a darker spin on the narrative of 'win-win' cooperation), these activities often precede current land deals rather than result from them. Chinese agribusiness in Laos's upland interior thus appears less as a driver of displacement than a means for attempting to secure in place a particular (if precarious) configuration of population and security.
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| 2 |
ID:
105631
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Everything is geopolitical in Central Asia where the newly independent state (NIS) Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are located. In other words, the major international political events in the region and most fateful political turns in regional developments bear, or are saturated with, geopolitical essence. However, contemporary geopolitics points to the necessity of revisiting the basis of classical geopolitical theory, which proved unable to explain and foresee the world political processes of that time, especially the collapse of the Soviet Union and geopolitical implications of that event.
The NIS - members of the CIS - in their endeavour to take full advantage of independence often manoeuvre within both the CIS and the international system. As a result, Central Asia is facing the by-product of the 'Great Game', which can be called the 'Small Game' between and among five countries of Central Asia - a phenomenon peculiar to micro-geopolitics. The new strategy is required from Uzbekistan in such conditions implying: democratic geopolitics, a new security outlook and a region-building goal-setting.
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