From Extractivism to Global Extractivism : The Evolution of an Organizing Concept

All the named authors were members of the Helsinki Research Working Group on Global Extractivisms and Alternatives, who jointly constructed this article. Equal authorship by all authors is recognised.Research on extractivism has rapidly proliferated, expanding into new empirical and conceptual spaces. We examine the origins, evolution, and conceptual expansion of the concept. Extractivism is useful to analyze resource extraction practices around the world. ‘Global Extractivism’ is a new conceptual tool for assessing global phenomena. We situate extractivism within an ensemble of concepts, and explore its relation to development, the state, and value. Extractivism as an organizing concept addresses many fields of research. Extractivism forms a complex of self-reinforcing practices, mentalities, and power differentials underwriting and rationalizing socio-ecologically destructive modes of organizing life-through subjugation, depletion, and non-reciprocity.Peer reviewe

Liquid Laws: Extractivism and Unstable Authority

This thesis concerns the co-constitution of extractivism and claims to authority, particularly in contexts where the legal narrative hides the ways that extractivism is facilitated. I examine how law implicitly structures extractivism, as well as how states use extractivism to generate authority. I look at this relationship in the context of international legal debates over the Antarctic Treaty, and a history of extractive interventions by the settler colonial state towards the Murray-Darling River Basin in south-eastern Australia. The way I read claims to authority engages both the violence and instability of these claims. The specific ways in which the relationship between extractivism and authority is enacted in these contexts depends in part on the spatial construction of water and ice. The co-constitution of extractivism and authority in these examples is also revealed both through imperial imaginaries that have material effects, and material practices that build a colonial legal imaginary

Forestry Extractivism in Uruguay

This chapter assesses how prominent definitions of (agro)extractivism are suited to explain forestry extractivism, and what are the shared and particular qualities of forestry extractivism as it manifests itself in large-scale tree monocultures for pulp production in Uruguay. Different definitions of (agro)extractivism are assessed. Forestry extractivism is one distinct form of agroextractivism, with some notable differences. Key features of forestry extractivism include: 1) Specific trade deals, as pulp investments are costly. 2) Long-term setting-up through stages: master plans; enclosures; establishing pulp mills; managing rising conflicts after the building. 3) Mills and plantations. 4) Ecological and carbon impacts. 5) Massive legitimization campaigns. This analysis should be accompanied by a global political economic and resource geopolitics analysis of particular global extractivisms, such as forestry. This should also be tied to particular contexts, polities and lived environments, which significantly influence especially the politics through which global extractivisms of different types are birthed and resisted. In here, what constitutes forestry extractivism in the context, polity and sector of Uruguayan pulpwood tree plantation expansion is analyzed. World-ecological and political ontological analyses are important for defining what activities should be called extractivist, and what types of extractivisms of what are involved in each activity.Peer reviewe

Extractivisms

Unsustainable extraction of natural resources has come under increasing criticism since the 2000s, as global commodity prices have risen, and new waves of land grabbing and investing have put resource politics in the limelight of global development. The concept of extractivism has been gaining scholarly and policy relevance and is becoming more widely used as an organizing concept to explore a range of unsustainable practices. The study of extractivism and its impacts extends to the deeper historical and structural features that underlie unsustainable practices, including economic models and ideologies. The concept of extractivism is useful for highlighting the deeper and systemic roots of unsustainability. The phenomena surrounding resistance to extractivism are highly useful for understanding the often-overlooked struggles of local communities. It is through such local struggles that communities may pursue more sustainable land-use practices, and more just socio-ecological conditions. This resistance often involves a deep critique and rethinking of the ways of understanding and conceptualizing nature, through which alternatives to extractivism, as a basis for sustainability, can be developed.Peer reviewe

Extractive Reserves: Building Natural Assets in the Brazilian Amazon

In the Amazon rainforest, Brazil's rubber tappers were the first social group to challenge the predatory development model that is threatening ecological disaster there. Their strategy to set up “extractive reserves”—conservation areas where the local population can harvest non-timber forest products—is examined in “Extractive Reserves: Building Natural Assets in the Brazilian Amazon,” by Anthony Hall.

Urban extractivism. Contesting megaprojects in Mexico City, rethinking urban values

Urban extractivism is an emergent concept increasingly discussed within Latin America-based scholarship but less known in anglophone urban geography. The devastating social and environmental impact of large-scale natural resource extraction, usually accompanied and driven by infrastructure megaprojects, is the main domain to which activists and scholars are currently applying the concept of extractivism. However, extractivism-related accumulation also applies to urban contexts, as for instance, scholars argue using this lens to analyze the production of exclusive urban territories in central Buenos Aires. In this contribution, I suggest to broaden the concept of urban extractivism to address pressing challenges of urban transformations in the peripheries of Mexico City, particularly concerning urban infrastructure megaprojects and Indigenous socio-territorial movements that advocate for a more sustainable use of natural resources. Critical reflection on the extractivism of knowledge reveals the need for more collaborative research methods in urban geography and beyond

Discussing the common(s) in neoliberal Capitalism: from Ontology to Politics

This article intends to think the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and the common(s). First, it ties to define the common both in ontological and political terms, stressing the similarities and differences between the common, commons and common goods. Then, it characterizes their relationship with neoliberal capitalism in terms of dispossession, expropriation and configuration. Finally, it discusses if the common can be thought as an alternative form of cooperation and self-government with regards to neoliberalism and to what extent it can be posed as a complete alternative to the state

Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

Political ecology, initially conceived to better understand the power relations implicit in management and distribution of natural resources in the developing world, came “home” to the American West in the 1990s and 2000s. This groundswell of research did much to problematize socio-environmental conflicts in the region, long typified by tensions over land and resources, identity and belonging, autonomy and authority. Since first touching down in the West, however, the “big tent” of political ecology has only grown bigger, incorporating new perspectives, epistemologies, and ontologies. At the same time, the nexus of environment and society is perhaps even more salient today, amid a regional conjuncture of populist revolt, climate change, and rapid political economic transformation. Here we reflect on three longstanding regional concerns – energy development, wolf reintroduction, and participatory governance – leveraging the pluralism of contemporary political ecology to better understand their contemporary incarnations. In so doing, we highlight the need to bring together insights from both “traditional” approaches and newer directions to better understand and engage contemporary challenges, with their heightened stakes and complexity. Such an approach demonstrates what we might learn about global processes in this place, as well as what insights regional praxis (often woefully provincial) might gain from elsewhere – new ways of seeing and doing political ecology. Our goal is to generate discussion among and between political ecologists and regional critical scholars, initiating new collaborative engagements that might serve the next wave of political ecology in the 21st century American West