Abstract
The present work advances a theory of the relationship between land dispossession and capitalism, a theory I call "regimes of dispossession". This theory provides a way of understanding the socially and historically specific forms dispossession takes, how it changes over time, and how these changes effect economic "development" and politics. "Regimes of dispossession" fills an absence in development sociology, and reconstructs Marx's theory of "primitive accumulation" and Harvey's "accumulation by dispossession" to provide a more adequate framework for understand land dispossessions, past and present.
Keywords:
Sociological theory; Regimes of dispossession; Capital accumulation; Marxism