The fever of the seaweeds. Form and dynamics of extractivism in the Chilean coast

A pesar de no ser descrito como tal, el negocio de las algas pardas en Chile encaja en las definiciones de extractivismo usuales: se trata de una actividad basada en la remoción intensiva de un recurso natural, actividad centrada en la exportación sin procesar del recurso y cuyo control está en manos de capitales extranjeros. Por lo demás, el funcionamiento del comercio de algas concuerda en aspectos más concretos con otros extractivismos: el negocio se estructura de manera jerárquica y opaca, con una mezcla de formalidad-informalidad (con regulaciones estrictas, pero subcontratación de la mano de obra, por ejemplo) y conlleva beneficios muy desiguales y un desarrollo más que cuestionable. Como en otros casos, también la actividad alguera acarrea efectos perjudiciales no sólo en lo ecológico sino también en lo social (agotamiento de los recursos y de las comunidades, entre otros). Todo ello se ilustra con un caso etnografiado, una localidad de la IV Región que ha sufrido una serie de extractivismos a lo largo de su historia y ha reactualizado viejas dinámicas y patrones con este nuevo recurso valorizado.Despite not being described as such, the brown seaweed business in Chile fits into the usual definitions of extractivism: it is an activity based on the intensive removal of a natural resource, an activity centred on the unprocessed export of the resource and whose control is in the hands of foreign capital. Moreover, the functioning of this trade agrees in more concrete aspects with other extractivisms: the business is structured in a hierarchical and dull manner, with a mixture of formality-informality (with strict regulations but subcontracting of labor, for example) and entails very unequal benefits and a more than questionable development. As in other cases, also the seaweed industry entails harmful effects not only in the ecological but also in the social (depletion of resources and communities, among others). All this is illustrated with an ethnographic case, a locality of the IV Region that has suffered a series of extractivisms throughout its history and has reactualized old dynamics and patterns with this new valued resource.CONICYT 8017001

Relational resources: Moving from plural to entangled extractivisms

Increasing studies of extractivisms, in the plural, examine the diverse politics that permeate extractive activities. However useful, this appeal to plurality is problematic. Plurality without relationality risks justifying some extractive activities over others, without addressing how they relate. Drawing on anti-essentialist, decolonial, and political ecological scholarship, this article proposes an ontological reframing of extractivisms that troubles the division and comparison that pervade notions of taxonomic plurality, and emphasizes the mutual constitution articulated within the concept of relationality. Analyses of relational resources are better equipped to illuminate the power-laden associations through which supposedly distinct commodity values, extractive geographies, sectors, and governance regimes shape one another. Beyond complicating rigid definitions of extractive categories, this ontological shift requires distinct methodologies for understanding and contesting entangled extractive interests and logics. It implicates what forms of anti-extractive resistance, solidarities, and alternative futures become viable, thinkable, and necessary

Extractivism : Apple Tree Care and How One Relates to Resources

Peer reviewe

Global extractivisms and transformative alternatives

This article examines global extractivisms and transformative alternatives; addressing: (1) access to and control over resources, (2) governance and recognition, (3) environmental-social harms, and (4) justice. The examination of these themes provides an understanding of the sociospatial links between extractivism and differentiated distribution of benefits and burdens. The study sheds light on the politics of recognition, including the discourses and policies that enable extractive industries to obtain licences to operate in resource-rich territories. The analysis illuminates the inseparability of environmental-social impacts of extractivism, including altered human-nonhuman relations, while opening perspectives to claims for justice and the search for transformative alternatives.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

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

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

Solastalgia in Biocitizenship’s Perspective on Narrating Energy

Peer reviewe

Extractivisms, Existences, and Extinctions : Monoculture Plantations and Amazon Deforestation

Peer reviewe

Extractivism at Your Fingertips

Peer reviewe