Land Rights at the Time of Global Production: Multi-Spatiality and ‘Legal Chokeholds’

Abstract

This Article utilizes the case of two sugar cane investments in Cambodia to reflect on the interactions between the multi-territoriality of supply chain capitalism and the multiplication of local spaces of intervention. With a combination of legal institutionalism, critical geography and critical value chains analysis, the Article assumes value chains as the exemplification of the global system of production and looks at the theoretical implications and redistributive possibilities that derive from delocalization, outsourcing and the establishment of transnational chains of production that cut across boundaries and jurisdictions. The notion of 'legal chokeholds' is introduced to identify those spaces and mechanisms of intervention that become visible when scholars engage with the multi-territorial character of production and map its legal complexity. The violations and potential redefinition of value throughout the chain are thus presented as output of non-linear interactions between legal and non-legal elements that operate at a distance, often unaware of each other.