Natalia Mamonova
| Natalia Mamonova is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focus on land grabbing in the post-Soviet countryside, land conflicts and activities of rural social movements in Russia and Ukraine. She holds 2 master degrees, has journalistic experience in Russia and participated in the academic research projects: ‘Land grabbing in Russia’ (LDPI 2010), ‘Land governance in Russia and Ukraine’ (Landac 2011). E-mail: mamonova@iss.nl |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Black Earth, Red Barons, ‘Green’ Investors and Grey Communities: Land grabbing and responses by local communities in post-communist Ukraine (with Oane Visser)
This research investigates land grabbing in Ukraine. This country was a ‘bread basket’ of Europe before its USSR period. Collectivization and post-Soviet de-collectivization of its land destroyed Ukrainian agriculture and fertile black soil was left abandoned. Currently, in the time of rising global food-feed-fuel demand, the Western and Gulf States investors shifted their attention to Ukrainian lands. Despite a moratorium on land sales, a land market exists behind the scenes, with an estimated 30% of agricultural land already controlled by TNC. Modern agricultural development in Ukraine left rural dwellers on the sideline, caused impoverishment of villages and peasant dispossession. This negative consequences for Ukrainian rural poor is often explained by aging of rural population and its political ‘indifference’. The paper will draw on preliminary research with representatives of rural movements in Ukraine conducted last year, and on this spring fieldwork in one or two rural communities, to study rural responses from a more grassroots perspective.
