Authors:Amber Murrey, Nicholas Jackson, Matías Volonterio Pages: 1 - 18 Abstract: In this intervention article, we cultivate an anti-colonial critique of the ideational genealogy and conceptual materialisation of the social licence to operate (SLO) in the extractive industries in order to open a conversation about the racialised and colonial logics underlying its enactment and discursive practices. SLO functions to restrict the emergence of imaginary political potentials within communities impacted by extractive projects. We focus on the role of academics and social science researchers within and beyond the space of the university in engineering, shaping, and promoting dominant SLO frameworks, and endorsing the power and mythology of SLO. We do so in conversation with decolonial orientations that simultaneously analyse the colonial logics within corporate practice and galvanise epistemic justice beyond colonial and epistemic extractivism. The university, as a site for the refinement and promotion of hegemonic concepts like SLO, is an important space for post-extractive struggles. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8334 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Alhassan Atta-Quayson Pages: 19 - 32 Abstract: Since commercial production of oil and gas started in Ghana over a decade ago, the salt sector which has historically been dominated by artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) has seen renewed corporate interest. Aided by the state’s preference for large-scale mining (LSM) over ASM since the days of the Economic Reform Program, several tens of thousands of acres of areas previously operated by artisanal and small-scale miners for salt mining have been leased to large-scale salt mining companies. Situated in political settlement and infrapolitics theoretical frameworks, with a focus on two key salt producing sites (Songor and Keta lagoons) and using qualitative research methods through ethnographic engagement with affected regions, the study explores the consequences of this new extractivism in the salt sector to assess the long-term consequences of forced evictions, as well as role of civil society in the retention or otherwise of the now dominant LSM in the salt sector. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8437 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Ricardo Carneiro, Flávia de Paula Duque Brasil, Bruno Dias Magalhães, Clara de Oliveira Lazzarotti Diniz Pages: 33 - 52 Abstract: The Serra do Curral is a mountain range that extends to the municipalities of Belo Horizonte, Sabará and Nova Lima, in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It is already deteriorated by a long history of mineral extraction not followed by any environmental restoration. Since the 1960’s, Serra do Curral has been an object of many civil society collective actions calling for its preservation. In 2022, the authorization of new mining operation provoked a strong civil society reaction. A coalition of environmental and social activists, alongside new political actors convened in defence of Serra do Curral now demand the immediate revocation of the licence. The present article analyses the current conflict, identifying the main actors, their collective action repertoires, and how those actions play out as the conflict unfolds. The research is conducted through documental inquiry, media coverage analysis and on-site direct observation. Looking into the political struggle around new-extractivism conflicts, we argue, can provide important data and insights about resistance and the developing of alternatives. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8296 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Rafael Mazoni Andrade Pages: 53 - 77 Abstract: The mining sector, over a number of centuries, has become a strong cultural attribute of Minas Gerais. Due to its mining reserves, the state has the biggest concentration of tailings dams built to retain mining waste. This led to large-scale accidents in the last decade – in Mariana (in October 2015) and in Brumadinho (in January 2019). These accidents have shifted the debate about mining in the region, and more widely changed the leading forces among society, bringing a new equilibrium to social relationships. The objective of this paper, as part of a monitoring effort, is to assess the impacts of these accidents on crime and violence as a new face of extractivism. The results can be used to design better responses in terms of welfare programs or compensation efforts, leading to a better and more responsible extractivism. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8297 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Yorbana Seign-goura Pages: 78 - 90 Abstract: The discovery of oil in Chad in the 1960s and its subsequent exploitation triggered the idea by international institutions that oil extraction would lead to sustainable development. Furthermore, Chad in tackling the resource curse would use rents to solve social, economic and security challenges on its territory. I argue that the state is the main actor in the resource curse, and its power derives rents from natural resources extraction. The curse emerges under local or international institutional pressures even if political outcomes are contextual and based on local norms. Drawing on theories of rentier state and developmental state, this paper seeks to critically explore local and international pressures that pull the state towards rentier behaviors resulting in poor local development outcomes. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8424 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Zainab L. Mai-Bornu Pages: 91 - 105 Abstract: How is the oil extractive industry affecting the livelihoods of women in the Niger Delta' This study explores the nature of the oil extractive industry in Nigeria and its impact on the livelihoods of women. The paper further focuses on the role of civil society in reconciling the interest of the oil industry and local economy of women in the Niger Delta. Relying on primary and secondary data as well as feminist theories, the study examines the case of Ijaw, Ogbia and Ogoni women, who have traditionally relied on fishing and farming as major means of income. The paper argues that women are the most affected by the oil industry through frequent spilling of crude oil in creeks, rivers, swamps and farmlands, where their sources of income is derived from. In addition, the civil society with women as active participants has only achieved little in terms of social justice. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8354 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Jonathan Paul Marshall Pages: 106 - 125 Abstract: This paper explores the repatterning of civil society, the social technologies of persuasion and information, and the role of socio-political contexts in Narrabri (an Australian country town, in Western New South Wales), and its surrounding region between 2018 and 2020. In Narrabri the consequences of Carbon Oligarchy are observed, as the oligarchy promoted new gas fields and expansions of a coal mine in the region. This expansion is justified by supposedly offering a solution to Narrabri’s apparent economic, agricultural and population decline problems, but for many local people, it worsens those problems. Conflict has been generated as a result, and the town has suffered painful fractures making the problems seem harder to solve because of the resulting disunity. The paper explores how the contest to justify the extraction also reduces the legitimacy of that extraction. PubDate: 2023-03-26 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8425 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
Authors:Bernardo Jurema, Maria Cecilia Oliveira Pages: 126 - 138 Abstract: At the root of much of the deforestation, land rights violations, human rights abuses and ultimately the continuation of unequal, neocolonial North-South relations are the two-fold phenomena of global market pressures for extractivism and mass production of resources and the militarization of response to social conflicts created by these activities. We will investigate the ‘new’ extractivism economic activities from the perspective of the violence perpetrated by assemblages of power against indigenous protest movements in the Peruvian Amazon region. Specifically, we will probe a grassroots’ response to the way Peru’s elites have integrated the country within the global economic system: we focus on Indigenous peoples’ protests in 2008-9 against the new regulation to open the Amazon for development of resources by private companies carried out by Peru’s President Alan García, on the grounds that it represented a threat to their natural resources and livelihood. PubDate: 2023-05-24 DOI: 10.5130/ccs.v15.i1.8543 Issue No:Vol. 15, No. 1 (2023)
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