Global land governance: from territory to flow?

• Published in: Current opinion in environmental sustainability 2013-10, Vol.5 (5), p.522-527
• Main Authors: Sikor, Thomas, Auld, Graeme, Bebbington, Anthony J, Benjaminsen, Tor A, Gentry, Bradford S, Hunsberger, Carol, Izac, Anne-Marie, Margulis, Matias E, Plieninger, Tobias, Schroeder, Heike, Upton, Caroline
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1877-3435; 1877-3443
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2013.06.006

•Global governance refers to rules at all levels having transnational repercussions.•Changes in global governance have facilitated and responded to land revalorizations.•Land governance is shifting from territorial toward flow-centered forms.•The shift is generating new ecological simplifications and social injustices.•Future land governance needs to combine flow-centered and territorial forms at multiple levels. This article reviews recent research on contemporary transformations of global land governance. It shows how changes in global governance have facilitated and responded to radical revalorizations of land, together driving the intensified competition and struggles over land observed in many other contributions to this special issue. The rules in place to govern land use are shifting from ‘territorial’ toward ‘flow-centered’ arrangements, the latter referring to governance that targets particular flows of resources or goods, such as certification of agricultural or wood products. The intensifying competition over land coupled with shifts toward flow-centered governance has generated land uses involving new forms of social exclusion, inequity and ecological simplification.