Gulf Capital, Deficient Deserts and Property-making in central Sudan

The Michael E. Marmura Lectures in Arabic Studies 2023-24 presents "Gulf Capital, Deficient Deserts and Property-making in central Sudan".

In the agricultural Gezira region of central Sudan, the term khalla means open land or expanse and refers to communal land that is partly used for grazing animals or rain-fed farming; what is often referred to as ‘the commons.’ Beginning with the provocation that the khalla is “running away from us” due to large-scale land investments and agribusiness practices, this talk takes up the khalla as method (Khayyat 2022), repository and medium through which to trace and analyse how past and emergent forms of capital accumulation and empire-making, structure everyday life at the edge of the Gezira scheme.