Beginning this week, I’m changing up how this newsletter comes out, and why. This will also be the last “report”. From the next piece, I’ll be sharing resources, news, and things I’m reading in separate entries. Shorter lengths, clearer focus, better timeliness.
The times are urgent, let us slow down.
—Bayo Akomolafe
On land
Last week, I attended a couple of conferences on land. The numbers are deeply troubling, and to some extent, it seems transparency does not bring better governance. The takeaway I had from both conferences, was the importance of focusing on place.
Uneven Ground report by @landcoalition and @Oxfam, presented at the LANDac conference June/July 2021
🖤look to counter-movements, indigenous peasant movements that are not subject to profit-maximization
🖤struggles at the transnational level need to 1) stop the spread of power, and 2) open space for people who are finding solutions on the ground: local initiatives of farmers, small traders, local markets etc.
🖤GiNi coefficient does not measure all land ownership, does not measure tracts of land. As such, Oxfam has developed a multi-dimensional Gini coefficient. Their report finds that land inequality has been underestimated - at 41%. They suggest this offers a powerful metric that can be used to help people working within corporations, to hold their corporations to account.
“We need to keep land high on the policy agenda.”
Financing Urban Resilience through Land Value Capture conference - by the IHS, the Netherlands, July 2021
Reflections:
Can Land Value Capture instruments really provide ways for cultural connections with land?
What institutional structures hold personal values back from coming to the fore?
What sorts of work can “Chief Resilience Officers” outside of institutions do? What are effective ways of working in and beyond the institutional role/structure?
Actions on the street
For anyone feeling land-anxiety (I am), there are protests that offer ways to make sense of what’s going on. For a perspective on the changes that the UN Food Systems Summit brings to the people not making those decisions.
Today, 26th July, there are mass actions in the Philippines and Cambodia, and tomorrow, 27th July, there will be a webinar on Food Security, Genuine Development, and Just Peace which you can watch live on Facebook. Or search #SiegetheSummit.
Finally! Because lands are important, and we can always do with more understanding of how our lands are connected with our bodily and socioemotional health and wellbeing, here are some decolonial and post-colonial reads on Southeast Asia - this is a shareable Google Sheet compiled some months ago. It is editable and shareable, and if you find it useful or wish to add a text, or have a comment about it, please do.
Until next time.