Current Position
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Biography
Marie’s current research interests are climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation and development assistance based at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Marie has a PhD from the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Cologne, Germany. I have a background in English and Anthropology from University of Aarhus and African Studies from University of Copenhagen, and employment experience from several consultancy and development agencies. My studies have focused on (post)colonial power relation, decentralisation, resource conflicts, relations between different knowledge systems and climate change adaptation.
Projects
Governing Adaptation Finance for Transformation (GAP)
GAP is a research programme analysing the institutional architecture of how and where finance for climate change adaptation is spent and which route of transfer it follows from national to local levels.
GAP is a four-year programme (2021-2025) involving collaborating research institutions in Denmark, Kenya and Tanzania. GAP is financed through the Danida Fellowship Centre (DFC).
PhD project
Negotiating Access to Land in a Contested Environment: Actors, Policies, Visions and the Fragmentation of Land-Use in Western Laikipia
This project focuses on negotiations of land access in the former White Highlands of Western Laikipia, where ethnic groups employ different livelihood strategies. A variety of uncertainties has produced a situation with absentee landlords and supposedly vacant land now settled by (semi)pastoral groups and small-scale farmers employing different strategies to claim their user rights. Hence, the area is prone to conflicts, whether political, between ethnic groups or conflicts based in court houses between landowners and squatters.
The study contextualizes the changes between colonial times of relative homogeneity and control by the few, over the Independence years with resettlement schemes and politicisation of land, to today’s social fragmentation and heterogeneity in aspects of land management, ownership and legal support.
Recent Publications
Gravesen, M. L., Muriu, E. 2022. Three factors may spark violence in Kenya’s 2022 elections. Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
Marie Ladekjær Gravesen. 2022. Kenyas valg mellem aldrende stabilitet og populistisk utilregnelighed kan påvirke hele regionen. Natural Resources and Development.
Marie Ladekjær Gravesen, Mette Løvschal. 2022. Hvorfor er hegn så provokerende?
Gravesen, M. L., Løvschal, M. 2022. Why are fences so provoking? Fences are not only a convenient tool for structure. Fencing also tells a story about power, exclusion and social dynamics. ScienceNordic.com Media article.
Marie Ladekjær Gravesen. 2022 klimavalgenes år? Natural Resources and Development.
Løvschal M, Gravesen ML. De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya. Land. 2021; 10(8):786.
Løvschal, M., Gravesen, M. L. 2021. De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya. Natural Resources and Development, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Marie Gravesen. 2020. Kampen om det hvide højland. DIIS, Natural Resources and Development.
Gravesen, M. L. 2020. Twilight Institutions: Land-buying Companies & their Long-term Implications in Laikipia, Kenya.
Marie Gravesen, Jacob Rasmussen. 2018. om Kenya efter valget: Kenyattas kontrolregime når nye alarmerende højder. University of Cologne, Roskilde University. Ræson.
Jonas Østergaard Nielsen, Marie Ladekjær Gravesen and Stig Jensen ’Power of knowledge under changing conditions: lessons from a Sahelian village under climate change’ in Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Lene Møller Madsen, Stig Jensen (eds.) Higher Education and Capacity Building in Africa: The geography and power of knowledge under changing conditions. Routledge, 2016
Marie Gravesen. (2016). What is Local?. In: People and Land, a publication by the Resilience in East Africa Landscapes Research Group. ISBN: 978-0-9573771-5-8. real-project.eu
Marie Gravesen. (2016). Who Belongs Here?. In: People and Land, a publication by the Resilience in East Africa Landscapes Research Group. ISBN: 978-0-9573771-5-8. real-project.eu
