We are excited to announce Wendy Wolford, Polson Professor of Global Development at Cornell University, as our keynote speaker at the Global Land Squeeze – An Interdisciplinary Symposium which will take place October 28–31, 2025, at Aarhus University.

This keynote event is co-sponsored by START Collaborative Landscapes HUB, and it will also be available online. Join the keynote speach online on zoom here: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/67126363987 

Abstract

For over 100 years, plantations have served as the imagined ideal for Mozambique, and they have influenced land settlement, agricultural production, and labor management in the territory. This keynote will outline the colonial roots of this desire for the elusive plantation and the way in which it shaped science, rural development, and community life in Mozambique. Drawing on archival materials and field research with government officials, scientists, extension agents, aid workers, and community members, Wolford argues that the global market takes priority over local needs; agricultural researchers rely on external funding that is short-term, motivated by international interests and the search for new varieties rather than land management; and local residents long seen only as plantation labor are separated into ‘emerging’ and ‘poor’ farmers, with research aimed at the former and charity at the latter. Theoretically and historically, the plantation ideal is tied to the development of forced labor, racialized inequality, agribusiness, global markets, and nation-state territorialization.