The Global Land Grab, Primitive Accumulation and Accumulation by Dispossession Revisited: from conceptual tensions and debates to contradictions and crisis tendencies

Abstract: In an attempt to understand and explain the global land grab in terms of the dynamics and contemporary transformations of capitalism, critical scholars have made extensive use of the concepts of primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession. Although they provide powerful insights into the phenomenon, their use is also fraught with challenges. In the absence of conceptual clarity, tensions and ambiguities over their meanings arise. There are also problematic assumptions embedded within them. The present study provides a critical review of this burgeoning conceptual debate. In so doing, it asks what can the analytical concepts of primitive accumulation and ABD give us that other concepts cannot. In search for answers, the notion of capitalism as a totality is revived. The study also questions the need for defining a generic concept of capitalism-facilitating accumulation, and offers instead a pluralistic view on capitalism to better appreciate its immense creative forces and varied ways of coming into being and expanding further across space and time.