Dr. Rachel Ibreck, Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick has been awarded funding of €33,560 from the Conflict Resolution Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs as part of the Irish Research Council Research Development Initiative to carry out a study of 'Resistance to ‘land grabbing’ in ill-governed states'.
 

The research will focus on local initiatives to prevent violent conflict after a recent surge in long-term leases on vast tracts of farmland offered to foreign investors in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the displacement or dispossession of the rural poor.  It will explore whether and how peasants associations and other local actors employ strategies of nonviolent resistance to oppose these 'land-grabs', and will examine their relationships with a transnational movement protesting against 'land-grabs' and struggling for 'food sovereignty'.