Laureen Elgert
| Laureen Elgert is an Assistant Professor in Social Science and Policy Studies and Environmental and Sustainability Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. She completed her PhD in the Department of International Development Studies at the London School of Economics in the UK. She has published on the politics of sustainable development and soy certification. Her research interests include expertise and deliberation, sustainability discourse, agriculture, certification, modeling indicators and commodity chains. Contact Laureen at lelgert@wpi.edu |
Research on Land-grabbing:
The role of commodity certification in greening the global land grab: the case of soy certification in Paraguay
There has been marked resistance against the way in which ‘sustainability’ is invoked by the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) to legitimize land inequality and the soy industry more generally. This project examines the ways in which the discourse of sustainable agriculture – in part created and mobilized through certification initiatives - enables the coalescence of diverse justifications for land-grabbing. Such justifications range from job creation, to national development, to increased food production, and environmental conservation. The role of certification bodies in establishing and mainstreaming this discourse needs greater attention from critical perspectives. Such institutions are increasingly prominent means of quelling public concern about the wider social, political and environmental consequences of concentrated land holdings in countries characterized by a large, and poor, rural population. Furthermore, well-known initiatives (ie: Forest Stewardship Council) have been joined by emergent organizations focused on creating the means of mainstreaming commodities such as palm oil, cocoa, beef and biofuels as ‘sustainable alternatives’.
