ABSTRACT

The concept of marginal land in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) has become important to understand land for LSLA deals. Based on remotely gathered geospatial data, the biophysical dimension of the concept dominates the characterization of land for LSLA deals. Little attention is paid to the socio-cultural dimension that represents years of dynamic community–environment interactions as lived experiences that are well structured in traditional knowledge. Informed by participatory appraisal methods in Nansanga farm block, an LSLA deal in Zambia, this study aimed at providing socio-cultural evidence that questions the concept constructed within science-development policy and political spaces. Overall, based on socio-cultural evidence, the findings suggest that Nansanga cannot be discounted as marginal land. In contribution to improving our understanding of human-environment interaction in land-use science, the paper argues for a mix of process-oriented and pattern-based approaches to gain better insights into land use change at spatial and temporal scales.

摘要

大规模土地收购（LSLA）中的边际土地概念对于理解土地以进行LSLA交易已变得非常重要。基于远程收集的地理空间数据，该概念的生物物理维度主导了LSLA交易的土地特征。很少有人关注社会文化维度，它代表着多年来动态的社区与环境互动，这些互动是传统知识中结构良好的生活经历。在赞比亚的一项LSLA协议Nansanga农场区的参与式评估方法的指导下，本研究旨在提供社会文化证据，质疑在科学发展政策和政治空间内构建的概念。总体而言，基于社会文化证据，研究结果表明，南桑加不能被视为边缘土地。