SuzanneVerhoog
Political/Environmental Scientist & lecturer Qualitative Research Methodologies @VU University Amsterdam
My research is focusing on land issues globally: effectiveness of soft law instruments (voluntary guidelines/codes of conduct), large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA) in the context of the climate-food-energy nexus, role of 'middle-men' elites, role of ICT's in improving land governance, uprise of peasant movements, populism in Eastern-Europe.
More specifically, my PhD project focuses on 'Land Grabbing in the Post-Socialist Era - The Role and Impact of Intermediary Elites in Eastern European Transitional Democracies'.
Abstract PhD proposal:
'Eastern European countries are largely targeted for ‘land grabbing’ by (inter)national investors. Currently the main focus of ‘land grabbing’ is still on the Global South. Recent media and scholarly research have started to report on so-called ‘middlemen’ brokers in facilitating land transactions in Eastern Europe. These land entrepreneurs seem to have already been involved in land practices right after the collapse of communism, hereby directly profiting from post-communist fuzziness in rural property relations. Based upon theoretical insights I have identified them as a relative fluid group of ‘intermediary elites’, hereby revealing the thin line between intermediaries and elites. So far no research was found that touches upon the role and interconnectivity of established nomenklatura elites and newly emerging elites in land practices in post-communist Eastern Europe. In public and academic debates furthermore the concepts of 'land grabbing' and Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA) are being used interchangeably and thus need to be redefined to determine the societal and environmental impact on small-scale farmers, presumably most adversely affected. In order to better understand how intermediary elites in LSLA practices in Eastern-European countries emerge and operate, this research aims to investigate the role and impact of intermediary elites. Data-collection takes place by conducting semi-structured interviews in post-communist Eastern Europe, combined with a Social Network Analysis in order to reveal these informal networks.'