October 3, 2021
Year of publication: 2020
Pages: #114 pp.
Publisher: FIAN International, Transnational Institute, Focus on the Global South
Abstract: Rural and urban communities around the globe are facing a dramatic increase in dispossession and destruction of their lands, rivers, pastures, forests, oceans, and homes. What is the reason for this dramatic increase? It is finance capitalism.
This discussion paper intends to provide a basis for people’s movements, grassroots activists and other civil society organizations (CSOs) to build/strengthen their knowledge about the process called “financialization,” and to develop strategies to resist, reverse and prevent it.
It has been developed by members of the IPC Land and Territory Working Group, which has defined the financialization of land and nature as a common and critical challenge that its member organizations face. This paper is based on their experiences and analyses and intends to stimulate collective reflection and discussion among all interested organizations about how to oppose the increasing power, influence and control of global finance over our territories.
The paper sheds light on different ways in which finance capital manifests itself in people’s territories, and the actors, places, institutions and policies, that drive these processes forward. The different chapters and the document itself conclude with a set of questions to guide further reflection and discussion.