<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>To whom it may concern!</div><div><br></div><div>regards +-></div><div><br></div><div><div class="col-md-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding-right: 15px; padding-left: 15px; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Work Sans"; font-size: 14px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><h1 class="home" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 50px 0px 10px; font-size: 45px; font-family: Merriweather; line-height: 55px; color: rgb(0, 90, 100); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Institutional Landscapes</h1><h5 class="home" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 30px; margin-top: 40px; margin-bottom: 50px; font-size: 20px; color: rgb(0, 90, 100); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Following Global Money into the Countryside</h5><div class="lead_in" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Merriweather; line-height: 38px; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 30px; font-size: 28px; color: rgb(0, 90, 100); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"></h2><h4 class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Merriweather; line-height: 38px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 30px; font-size: 28px; color: rgb(0, 90, 100); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Why and how has agriculture become a new “asset frontier” for global finance? On this website, users can follow the extension of global investment chains into the countrysides of the Global North and South alike. </h4><h4 class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Merriweather; line-height: 38px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 30px; font-size: 28px; color: rgb(0, 90, 100); -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"></h4></div></div><div class="col-md-6 side left" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px 15px 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; border-right-style: none; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Work Sans"; font-size: 14px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 90, 100);">This website includes</b></span> many findings from eight years of global research culminating in my book “Farming as Financial Asset – Global Finance and the Making of Institutional Landscapes”. It also contains additional research by me and other (invited) researchers concerned with the transformation of farmland, agricultural production and other parts of the agricultural value chain into financial assets. The website seeks to speak to a broad audience and aims at demystifying the operations of global asset management, activities that often appear as complex, opaque and technical. If you come across unfamiliar terms and concept, click on <a href="http://institutionallandscapes.org/startseite/glossary/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(231, 158, 104); transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">Glossary</a> in the footer menu. Or scroll through the key literature advice in the footer menu of this homepage. If you have further questions, feel free to <a href="http://institutionallandscapes.org/startseite/contact/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(231, 158, 104); transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">contact</a>me.</p></div><div class="col-md-6 side" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative; min-height: 1px; padding: 15px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Work Sans"; font-size: 14px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 30px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 90, 100);">The common thread </b></span>running through this website is the notion of institutional landscapes. It refers to those parts of the human and non-human world that have become transformed into a financial asset, a property that yields an income stream and that can be resold in the future, as part of portfolio considerations of institutional investors. These, in turn, serve the needs of the more privileged ones in society. In other words, institutional landscapes are an expression of the expansion of a “global return society”, in which the reproduction of the better-off people of the Global North (and, increasingly, the Global South) has become tied to the reproduction of finance capital, both “at home” and abroad. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Often the roots of this capital lead right back into the “middle of society”.</p></div></div><div><br></div><a href="http://institutionallandscapes.org/">http://institutionallandscapes.org/</a><div dir="ltr"></div></body></html>