Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2021
Farmland investments have attracted numerous entrepreneurs and companies to Africa in the past two decades. However, acquiring, retaining, and exploiting large-scale landholdings is more complicated than it seems. Investors need to persuade governments and populations of their anticipated benefits and limit dissenting voices when they emerge. Focusing on a contested land project in Senegal, Gagné develops the concept of “repertoires of control” to analyze the different performances of power that companies deploy to assert and legitimize their land claims. She argues that to survive, companies must continually adapt these performances to changes in the political environment of their host countries.
Les investissements dans les terres agricoles ont attiré nombre d’entrepreneurs et de compagnies en Afrique au cours des deux dernières décennies. Toutefois, acquérir, conserver et exploiter une propriété foncière à grande échelle est plus compliqué qu’il n’y paraît. À cette fin, les investisseurs doivent persuader les gouvernements et les populations de leurs bénéfices escomptés et contenir les voix dissidentes lorsqu’elles émergent. Examinant un projet foncier contesté au Sénégal, Gagné élabore le concept de « répertoires de contrôle » pour analyser les différentes performances de pouvoir que les compagnies déploient pour revendiquer des terres et clamer leur légitimité. Elle soutient que, pour survivre, les entreprises doivent continuellement adapter ces performances aux changements survenant dans l’environnement politique de leurs pays hôtes.
Nas últimas duas décadas, os investimentos em propriedades agrícolas têm atraído numerosos empreendedores e empresas para África. Porém, a aquisição, manutenção e exploração de terrenos de grandes dimensões é mais complicada do que parece. Os investidores têm de convencer os governos e as populações acerca dos benefícios futuros dos seus investimentos, bem como conter as vozes dissonantes sempre que estas se levantam. Partindo de um projeto agrícola que foi alvo de contestação no Senegal, Gagné desenvolve o conceito de “repertórios de controlo”, analisando as várias manifestações de poder a que as empresas recorrem para defender e legitimar as suas pretensões. A autora argumenta que, para sobreviverem, as empresas têm de manter estas manifestações de poder em constante adaptação às mudanças verificadas no ambiente político dos seus países anfitriões.
Please note a has been issued for this article.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.