Contested Extractivism, Society and the State, 1st ed. 2017 Struggles over Mining and Land Development, Justice and Citizenship Series

This book empirically discusses recent struggles over land and mining, exploring state-society relations conflicts on various scales. In contrast with the existing literature, analyses in this volume deliberately focus on large-scale land use changes both in relation to the expansion of industrial mining and to agro-industry. The authors contend that there are significant parallels between contestations over different variants of resource extractivism, as they reflect the same global trends and processes. Chapters draw on critical theoretical approaches from political ecology, political economy, spatial theory, contentious politics, and the study of democracy. The authors not only provide empirical insights on actual resource struggles from different world regions based on in-depth field research, but also contribute to theory-building by linking concepts from various critical approaches to one another, developing a perspective for analysing struggles over resources related to current global crisis phenomena.

1. Contested Extractivism, Society and the State – an Introduction; Kristina Dietz and Bettina Engels.- 2. Reimagining Extractivism: Insights from Spatial Theory; Facundo Martín.- 3. Beyond Curse and Blessing: Rentier Society in Venezuela; Stefan Peters.- 4. Ghana – big man big envelope, finish: Chinese Corporate Exploitation in Small-Scale Mining; Coleman Agyeyomah, Gordon Crawford and Atinga Mba.- 5. Small-Scale Gold Mining and the State in the Philippines; Boris Verbrugge.- 6. Politics of Scale and Struggles over Mining in Colombia; Kristina Dietz.- 7. Not all Glitter is Gold: Mining Conflicts in Burkina Faso; Bettina Engels.- 8. Peasant Movements in Argentina and Brazil.- Renata Motta.- 9. Oil Palm Expansion and Peasant Environmental Justice Struggles in Colombia; Victoria Marin-Burgos.- 10. Contested Market-Driven Land Reform in Malawi; David Chinigò.- 11. Contesting Extractivism: Conceptual, Theoretical and Normative Reflections; Jonas Wolff.

Bettina Engels is Junior Professor for Conflict and African Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Together with Kristina Dietz, she is head of the junior research group ‘Global Change – Local Conflicts?’. Her research focuses on conflict over land and resources, spatial and action theory, and resistance, urban protest, and social movements in Africa.

Kristina Dietz is head of the junior research group ‘Global Change – Local Conflicts? conflicts over land in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the context of interdependent transformation processes’ at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Her research and teaching focus on political ecology, conflicts over land and resources in Latin America, climate and energy policy, spatial and democracy theory.