CASAS’ member Sane Zuka has published an article in Cities journal.
Abstract: Despite extensive research on the phenomenon of capitalist transformation of land use, debates over commodification of land into capitalist modes of relations persist. This paper responds to this ongoing debate that highlights how, while adequately engaging with large-scale land deals, the scholarship on land commodification has ignored critical analysis of small but incremental land transactions. Mobilizing governmentality and accumulation by dispossession theoretical frameworks, this paper examines how and, in whose interests, forms of peri-urban land transactions in Malawi are restructuring existing patterns of customary land tenure arrangement. Drawing from both quantitative (plot survey) and qualitative data (structured interviews, Focus Group Discussions) collected from Mpemba peri urban area in Blantyre City in Malawi, the paper advances two key arguments namely: firstly, though limited to large-scale land transactions, incremental land transaction in urban spaces reproduce effects that mirror large-scale commodification of land, and secondly, urban policy in favour of urbanization overlooks its negative effects on poor groups of people. Thus, the case of Malawi reveals how small but incremental private land transactions mask market-based land exchanges that shape mechanisms of dispossession, accumulation and impoverishment.
Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106621
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CASAS
The Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the Global South (CASAS) is a community of Scholar-Activists working in critical agrarian studies.