The Arrighi Center and the Department of Sociology welcome Dr. Peter Jacobs, who has been awarded the prestigious 2017 Fulbright Grant for research scholars. The grant allows him to consolidate more than a decade of his studies on land reform into a book manuscript. From January through July 2017 he will be in residence in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University to complete his new book project.

Dr. Jacobs is the Research Director of the Economic Performance and Development Research Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council in Capetown, South Africa. In the process of writing his manuscript, Dr. Jacobs plans to collaborate with colleagues in the Arrighi Center and the Sociology Department who study global land and labor issues.

Dr. Jacobs’ work will contribute to advancing one of the four main Arrighi Center research foci–“Land, Labor and Environmental Rights and Struggles”. Regarding his manuscript on the “land question” in South Africa, he writes:

“Trends show that a shrinking number of individuals or corporations own more land, in absolute and relative terms. Conflicts over widening land inequalities, in turn, often spill over into widespread political conflicts or ignite social revolutions.”