Between two hypes: Will big data help unravel blind spots in understanding the global land rush?

Abstract

The past several years have seen a huge number of publications, conferences and campaigns on “land grabbing” or large-scale acquisition of land, most often in Africa. Land-grabbing became a fiercely debated issue and the attention rapidly evolved into a real hype which has generated a wealth of knowledge. This global land grab awareness has coincided in time with the “big data” discussion which is one of the most hyped terms today in both academia and business, suggesting that the availability of datasets of increasing volume, velocity and variety can help to better understand reality. This article aims to critically review to what extent the availability of huge amounts of information about the land grab debate, including new sources of big data, has helped to untangle land grabbing and – more particularly – raising new questions and formulating new hypotheses that have been overlooked in the past. What is the value of digital methods and data driven research through online platforms for identifying knowledge gaps and proposing solutions? Our article shows the value of big data in uncovering new realities but also challenges to not become overwhelmed – while making more efforts than ever to look at the quality – and reliability – of information. Keep doing empirical research – and keep our feet on the ground while also learning from “virtual space” – is a sine qua non – for keeping track and making sensible interpretations. In many cases, however, there is a discrepancy between what is reported (big data) and what is important.