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Marie Ladekjær Gravesen, M.A.

Thematic Interests and Regional Focus

Human-Environment Relations, Resource Conflicts, Property and Access Rights, Colonial and Postcolonial studies.

Research Projects

Holds the position as ESR 10 in the Marie Curie Actions ITN project 'Resilience in East African Landscapes' (REAL) funded by the European Commission.

Phd project

'Negotiating Access to Land in a Contested Environment: Actors, Policies, Visions and the Fragmentation of Land-Use in Western Laikipia'

This project focuses on negotiations of land access in the former White Highlands of Western Laikipia, where ethnic groups employ different livelihood strategies. A variety of uncertainties has produced a situation with absentee landlords and supposedly vacant land now settled by (semi) pastoral groups and small-scale farmers employing different strategies to claim their user rights. Hence, the area is prone to conflicts, whether political, between ethnic groups or conflicts based in court houses between landowners and squatters.

The study contextualizes the changes between colonial times of relative homogeneity and control by the few, over the Independence years with resettlement schemes and politicisation of land, to today’s social fragmentation and heterogeneity in aspects of land management, ownership and legal support.

Courses and Seminars

Guest lecturer in M.A. course "Governing Africa’s Natural Resources", Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Lecturer in M.A. course "Vulnerability, Risk Management and Resilience: Pastoralist Futures", Institut für Ethnologie, Cologne University.

Guest lecturer in M.A. Thesis Seminar at Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Guest lecturer in M.A. course "Nature, Population and Society in Africa" at Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Publications

Jonas Østergaard Nielsen, Marie Ladekjær Gravesen and Stig Jensen (2016) ’Power of knowledge under changing conditions: lessons from a Sahelian village under climate change’ in Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Lene Møller Madsen, Stig Jensen (eds.) Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa: The geography and power of knowledge under changing conditions. Routledge.

Marie Gravesen. (2016). 'What is Local?'. In: People and Land, a publication by the Resilience in East Africa Landscapes Research Group. ISBN: 978-0-9573771-5-8. real-project.eu

Marie Gravesen. (2016). 'Who Belongs Here?'. In: People and Land, a publication by the Resilience in East Africa Landscapes Research Group. ISBN: 978-0-9573771-5-8. real-project.eu