Drylands, frontiers, and the politics of change

Abstract

Abstract

en Change is of all times, but it would appear that in the drylands of Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia/Inner Asia it is happening in an overwhelming manner. Climate change, growing political instability, and increasing enclosures of large expanses of land are some of the changes with far-reaching consequences for those who make their living in the drylands. This edited volume is about the changes that arise from the entanglement of global interests and narratives with the local struggles that have always existed in the drylands. In this chapter, the notion of ‘frontier’ is proposed as a metaphor to frame this entanglement and as a way to bring the different chapters in the volume together. Overviews of the chapters show that to understand the full politics of frontier processes, analytical approaches are necessary that take into account historical institutional changes and different forms of power relations.