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SEMINAR: The green transition in Africa and beyond – a tale of extractivism, fossil capitalism, and green (neo)colonialism

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SEMINAR: Navigating the green energy dilemma: a case study of geothermal development in Kenya

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Apply: PhD scholarships: Digital Agrarian Futures project

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Call for applications 2026: New Thinking on Integrating Biodiversity and Social Justice short course

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IASC Keynote: Taking Back the Commons: Decommodification, Deconcentration and Democratisation FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

IASC Keynote: Taking Back the Commons: Decommodification, Deconcentration and Democratisation

Taking Back the Commons: Decommodification, Deconcentration, and Democratisation Ruth Hall and Moenieba Isaacs Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape South AfricaAbstract The battle is on for Africa’s commons, but not all is lost. Beyond the onslaught of corporate, elite and state-backed land and resource grabbing that is rampant across the continent, this talk…
PLAAS
June 29, 2023
Digital tech in African agriculture FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

Digital tech in African agriculture

The digital revolution in global agriculture has begun and this includes digital tech in African agriculture. We now see the use of a variety of digital tools on the continent, such as drones, precision farming machinery, digital decision-making support tools, digital labor management tools or online food and agricultural input marketplaces. Even though the digital revolution is still at an…
PLAAS
June 7, 2023
PLAAS PUBLIC LECTURE – Obstacles to women’s land rights and ways forward: Insights from India and beyond FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

PLAAS PUBLIC LECTURE – Obstacles to women’s land rights and ways forward: Insights from India and beyond

Tuesday, 13 June 2023, 13h00 - 14h30 CAT Please join us for a public lecture by Professor Bina Agarwal from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom who will be talking about ‘Obstacles to women’s land rights and ways forward: Insights from India and beyond’. Abstract Globally, for many decades (sometimes even a century) rural women…
PLAAS
June 1, 2023
PLAAS Concludes Pan-African Online Course on the Political Economy of Land Governance FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

PLAAS Concludes Pan-African Online Course on the Political Economy of Land Governance

CAPE TOWN, 05 May 2023. The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) last week concluded another pan-African programme on the political economy of land governance, with 71 participants from 21 countries.   This short course is hosted by PLAAS at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in collaboration with the African Land Policy Centre (ALPC), and is an…
PLAAS
May 8, 2023
PLAAS ACADEMIC SEMINAR – Algorithmic Plant Justice: Vegetal Beings, Gendered Relations, and the Governing of Precision Agriculture FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

PLAAS ACADEMIC SEMINAR – Algorithmic Plant Justice: Vegetal Beings, Gendered Relations, and the Governing of Precision Agriculture

Tuesday, 9 May 2023, 13h00 - 14h00 Please join us for an academic seminar by Associate Professor Laura Foster from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA who will be talking about ‘Algorithmic Plant Justice: Vegetal Beings, Gendered Relations, and the Governing of Precision Agriculture’. Abstract Precision agriculture or smart farming refers to the use of automated decision-making systems devoted to improving the…
PLAAS
May 4, 2023
PLAAS Academic Seminar – The Violence of Conservation in Africa: seeking non-violent alternatives News & EventsNews & Events Featured

PLAAS Academic Seminar – The Violence of Conservation in Africa: seeking non-violent alternatives

The presentation based on a recent book, The Violence of Conservation in Africa with Maano Ramutsindela and Tafadzwa Mushonga (2022), will focus on African states and their behaviours towards African people in conservation spaces within the global environmental agendas of powerful states and conservation organizations. It critiques conservation as an ideology referencing African landscapes without people leading to conservation violence…
PLAAS
April 21, 2023
PLAAS hosts a Regional Policy Dialogue on the Formalisation of Customary Land Rights and Implications for Women’s Land Tenure Security and Livelihoods in Southern Africa News & EventsNews & Events Featured

PLAAS hosts a Regional Policy Dialogue on the Formalisation of Customary Land Rights and Implications for Women’s Land Tenure Security and Livelihoods in Southern Africa

JOHANNESBURG, 29 March 2023. The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) hosted the Southern African Regional Land Policy Dialogue to disseminate the findings of its multi-country research project on the privatisation of customary land and implications for women’s land tenure security and livelihoods.  The event in Johannesburg, South Africa, was attended by members of parliament, government officials, traditional…
PLAAS
April 17, 2023
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: Critical Agrarian Studies in the 21st Century FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: Critical Agrarian Studies in the 21st Century

10 October 2023 – 12 October 2023 College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China To mark the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS), JPS together with the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University (COHD-CAU), the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the South (CASAS) and the Transnational Institute (TNI) are…
PLAAS
April 6, 2023
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ACADEMIC SEMINAR: Understanding South African Deagrarianisation FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

ACADEMIC SEMINAR: Understanding South African Deagrarianisation

29 March 2023 – 13:00 - 14:00 CAT Understanding South African Deagrarianisation: Analysing Smallholders’ Voices About The Abandonment Of Field Cultivation Through A Political-Historical Lens Academic Seminar In this talk, Prof. Klara Fischer will present findings from ethnographic field work in a group of villages outside Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape where she has worked since 2008. She draws on…
PLAAS
March 29, 2023
WEBINAR: Cross-border labour geographies in the South African periphery FeaturedNews & EventsNews & Events Featured

WEBINAR: Cross-border labour geographies in the South African periphery

TUESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2023 from 13:00 – 14:30 SAST/CAT PLAAS invites you to a webinar titled ‘Cross-border labour geographies in the South African periphery' Abstract The beitbridge-pondrift borderscape in South Africa boasts one of the biggest commercial agriculture estate, private nature reserves, and a diamond mine. The materiality of the sectors such as: bushveld and wildlife in the case of…
PLAAS
February 21, 2023