Oane Visser
| Oane Visser is Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on land grabbing, rural development, land governance and rural social movements in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union at large. He has carried out field research in various Russian regions, and engaged in comparative research on rural issues within the former Soviet Union, and beyond. E-mail: o.visser@maw.ru.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 Natalia Mamonova)
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.
