States and corporate land acquisition: comparing regimes of dispossession across the global south

How do processes of land dispossession vary across countries and sectors, and how could these differences be studied comparatively? In this introductory essay to the special issue Comparing Regimes of Dispossession, we address these questions by analysing a range of cases of corporate land dispossession from Brazil, East Timor, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Cambodia. We compare these cases by analysing five aspects of dispossessionary processes: actors, legal mechanisms, degree of regulatory evasion, coercion and remuneration. Building on this framework, we argue that these dimensions align in ways that reveal three distinct forms that processes of land dispossession may take: eminent domain-based, curtailed land rights-based, and decentralized coercion-based dispossession. We propose that a comparative approach is crucial for understanding the conditions that facilitate land dispossession, as well as the opportunities for affected communities to effectively resist the corporate acquisition of their land.