Ruth Hall is an associate professor at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and holds a DPhil in politics from the University of Oxford, UL. Her research focuses on land and agrarian reform in South Africa, and she also does research on land rights, agricultural commercialization and ‘land grabbing’ in Africa. She is a founding member and co-convenor of the Land Deal Politics Initiative and the BRICS Initiative in Critical Agrarian Studies, and is the coordinator of the Future Agricultures Consortium’s work on land in Africa and coordinator of its regional hub for Southern Africa.