This paper is concerned with the global dynamics of a two-species Grindrod clustering model with Lotka–Volterra competition. The model takes the advective flux to depend directly upon local population densities without requiring intermediate signals like attractants or repellents to form the aggregation so as to increase the chances of survival of individuals like human populations forming small nucleated settlements. By imposing appropriate boundary conditions, we establish the global boundedness of solutions in two-dimensional bounded domains. Moreover, we prove the global stability of spatially homogeneous steady states under appropriate conditions on system parameters, and show that the rate of convergence to the coexistence steady state is exponential while the rate of convergence to the competitive exclusion steady state is algebraic.