Position:
Early-stage researcher (ESR 10)
Address:
Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology
University of Cologne
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50923 Cologne
Email:
marie.gravesen@uni-koeln.de
Website:
Department webpage
Linkedin
Biography:
I am Marie Ladekjær Gravesen, the ESR 10 of the REAL project. I am affiliated to the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at University of Cologne. I have a background in English and Anthropology from University of Aarhus and African Studies from University of Copenhagen. Besides that I have working experience from different consultancy and development agencies.
My studies have focused on (post)colonial power relation, decentralisation, resource conflicts, relations between different knowledge systems and climate change adaptation.
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.
Recent Publications:
Jonas Østergaard Nielsen, Marie Ladekjær Gravesen and Stig Jensen ’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, 2016
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
