LDPI Working Paper 39. Challenging the dominant assumptions about peasants’ responses to land grabbing. ‘Politics from below’ in Ukraine

Abstract

The assumption that globally, peasants are against land grabbing is dominant among many rural social movements, NGOs, and scholars empathetic with them. However, this is not always the case. Land grabs affect different rural groups in different ways, which creates a variety of reactions to it: from reckless enthusiasm, cautious acceptance, to outright resistance. This paper aims to rethink contemporary assumptions about rural resistance to large-scale land acquisitions. Analysing the context of Ukraine, the author argues that the politics of dispossessed groups depend on terms of inclusion in land deals; adaptive response strategies dominate over resistance; and peasants are more concerned with personal gains from land grabs than with benefits for the whole community