New research avenues on urban expansion and land commodification in the Global South: Housing, capitalisation, agricultural changes

This study looks at the ways in which land use is converted in the South as a result of urbanisation. The various stages in the conversion process are analysed: changes in ownership, acquisition of land rights, transactions, plot divisions, development through building, property development (housing estates, property projects of various sizes, etc.) or fallow land (plots of land that have been demarcated but remain undeveloped). These changes are taking place on different types of land, from cultivated fields to common areas and environmentally sensitive spaces. The sequencing of the stages and the actors involved in land conversions vary according to the context in which they occur. Large-scale land conversions generated by major development and infrastructure projects, industrial and extractive activities, and large-scale land grabs in rural areas have been widely examined over the past decade. But little has been written about how ordinary actors – residents, local land rights holders, local economic operators, local elected officials – acquire plots of land and change the way they are used in order to build houses, develop economic activities or accumulate capital. Even though this is a huge phenomenon, the different regulatory frameworks and public actors behind it have yet to be clearly identified. These conversions are accelerating under the influence of a number of factors: urban growth on various scales, changes in local legal standards for access to land in rural areas, a surge in rural and urban land markets, the growing power of private and financial players in land and property production, and urban development. The effects are far-reaching: deterioration of the environment, widening of socio-economic inequalities, pressure on family farming and sterilisation of fertile soil, financial risks at many levels, burden on authorities in terms of infrastructure and services.

Global