Frontiers are often extractive spaces. Landscapes are reconfigured by capital, territoriality and discourse into industrial plantations and mono-crop booms, along with the relationships between people to nature, land and rule. Frontiers are also spaces of contestation where state authorities, private sector actors, conservationists, development actors, entrepreneurs, activists, indigenous peoples and local communities jostle with their divergent interests. Over the past four years, the FairFrontiers project (2022-2026) has generated grounded and contextual understandings of the social-political-ecological aspects in forest-agriculture frontiers in Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Applying an analytical frame of transformational change in frontiers as shifts in power relations, discursive practices and incentive structures away from extractive practices, we ask if development in frontiers can transform to be more sustainable, equitable, and include local and indigenous justice. The three short talks will focus on our work in tracing flows of material, ideas and finance in frontiers – and we look forward to discussing with you on these topics. • Frontier-making and un-making – Grace Wong, SRC/Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) • Forest land deals: Discourse coalitions, resistance and silent actors in the media – Ayami Kan, RIHN and Maria Brockhaus, University of Helsinki • Follow the money: Competing REDD+ finance and land investments in Mai Ndombe, DRC – Niak Sian Koh, University of Oxford

Added by:
Amanda Jiménez Aceituno

Cancel this event Edit Event

Show calendar