This collection of cutting-edge articles focuses on recent shifts in thinking about land rights, particularly as they relate to women. Leading feminist scholars in the field provide searching treatment of the long-neglected subject of gender and access to land.

This collection of cutting-edge articles focuses on recent shifts in thinking about land rights, particularly as they relate to women. Leading feminist scholars in the field provide searching treatment of the long-neglected subject of gender and access to land. The articles are introduced and contextualized by Shahra Razavi. She weaves together the findings and arguments of contributions which look at the implications of the current neoliberal policy agenda for a number of specific regions. Topics covered range from policy discussions about women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa to land tenure reforms and women's interests in Tanzania; and from new prospects with respect to gender and land rights in India, to agrarian reform to rural social movements and women's land rights in Brazil. This is a timely collection, in which careful empirical analysis is presented with analytical power and clarity. The papers are provocative, refreshingly original and richly informative.

1. Editorial Introduction: Terence J. Byres and Henry Bernstein (both at University of London).
2. Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Rights: Shahra Razavi (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva).
3. Global Capitalism, Deflation and Agrarian Crisis in Developing Countries: Utsa Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University).
4. Policy Discourses on Women's Land Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re-turn to the Customary: Anne Whitehead (University of Sussex) and Dzodzi Tsikata (University of Ghana).
5. Piety in the Sky? Gender Policy and Land Reform in South Africa: Cherryl Walker.
6. Securing Women's Interests within Land Tenure Reforms: Recent Debates in Tanzania: Dzodzi Tsikata (lives in Durham).
7. Gender and Land Rights Revisited: Exploring New Prospects via the State, Family and Market: Bina Agarwal (University of Delhi).
8. The Cry for Land: Agrarian Reform, Gender and Land Rights in Uzbekistan: Deniz Kandiyoti (University of London).
9. Women's Land Rights and Rural Social Movements in the Brazilian Agrarian Reform: Carmen Diana Deere (Universty of Massachusetts).