Main CRI Seminar: Prof. Jacobo Grajales

Main CRI Seminar, in collaboration with Geography and Political Ecology

Speaker: Prof. Jacobo Grajales, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Paris

Title: Making green cocoa: Deforestation, the legacy of war, and agrarian capitalism in Côte d'Ivoire

This talk will examine the legacy of war on environmental policy, contributing to recent literature on the linkages between armed violence, conservation, rural livelihoods, and global value chains. Jacobo argues that environmental norms reshape agricultural practices, but also the means by which people claim control over land and labour. Using the case of cocoa in Côte d'voire, he examines the impact of 'zero-deforestation' policies on the country's last agricultural frontier: its western forestlands, where migration and deforestation have driven the development of the cocoa economy for years. The region is now feeling the effects of global trade and development policies on deforestation, competition for the last remaining forests, and social fault lines inherited from the war. The talk will trace the origins of the zero-deforestation policy, its national and local impact, and its implications for social struggles over the control of land and labour.

Jacobo Grajales is Professor of political science at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France. His current research focuses on the relationship between peacebuilding, land, and environmental policy. He has conducted research in Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia. His latest book, published by Routledge in 2021, is entitled Agrarian Capitalism, War and Peace in Colombia: Beyond Dispossession.

In collaboration with the Political Ecology Group

All departments and CCI partners are welcome!

Followed by networking.