Rachel Nalepa
| Rachel Nalepa is a PhD student in the department of Geography and Environment at Boston University. Her dissertation research is focused on the modernization of contemporary Ethiopia through large-scale food and biofuel projects. In particular, she is interested in the politicization of geospatial technologies and the categorization of ‘marginal’ and ‘unused’ agricultural lands to legitimize land deal politics and land redistribution in both a local context and at a national level. Contact information: ran@bu.edu |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Linking land grabbing and land use change: a multi-scalar characterization of marginal lands for biofuels in Ethiopia
Seeking foreign exchange, rural development, and domestic energy security, the Ethiopian government has asserted that approximately 23 million hectares of land are potentially available for the development of bioenergy crops nationally. Though it has been stressed that only ‘marginal land’ is to be used to avoid compromising food security, there are no specifics on these earmarked lands nor has the government disclosed the means by which they were identified. This project is a multi-scale investigation into the ‘marginal lands’ narrative in Ethiopia and explores the characteristics that set land slated for bioenergy crops apart and whether these lands are indeed unfit for food production, as it is often implied. This study also investigates how ‘unused land’ may be methodologically or rhetorically differentiated from ‘marginal land’ and proposes alternative perspectives on these landscapes that more completely capture existing human-environment relationships than the ‘unused’ land narrative put forth by the state.
