The conjunction of climate, food, and financial crises in the late 2000s triggered renewed interest in farmland and agribusiness investments around the world. This phenomenon became known as the ‘global land grab' and sparked debates among social movements, NGOs, academics, government and international development agencies worldwide. In this introduction, we critically analyse the ‘state of the literature' so far, and outline four areas that are moving the debate ‘beyond land grabs'. These include: (1) the role of contract farming and differentiation among farm workers in the consolidation of farmland; (2) the broader forms of dispossession and mechanisms of control and value grabbing beyond ‘classic’ land grabs for agricultural production; (3) discourses about, and responses to, Chinese agribusiness investments abroad; and (4) the relationship between financialization and land grabbing. Ultimately, we propose new directions to deepen and even transform the research agenda on land struggles and agroindustrial restructuring around the world.

This special section contributes to the vibrant debates concerning the “new political moment” underway with regards to “authoritarian populism” and nationalism in the agrarian South. With neoliberal globalisation in crisis, nationalist-populist and authoritarian movements are gaining ground, often transforming state and class configurations in ways that appease landed, agro-industrial and political elites, while simultaneously seeking to neutralise forms of resistance. Rather than starting from an ambiguous concept that submerges these class conflicts and contradictions, we argue that re-centering class struggles that frame the new political moment offers a more useful framework for understanding agrarian transformation in the contemporary period.