Resource Extraction and Contentious States: Mining and the Politics of Scale in the Pacific Islands

by Matthew G. Allen

Overview

This Pivot offers a comprehensive cross-country study of the effects of large-scale resource extraction in Asia Pacific, considering how large-scale extractive industries engender contentious social, political and economic questions. Addressing the strong association in Melanesia between extractive resource industries and a spectrum of violence ranging from interpersonal to collective forms, it questions whether islands are particularly potent spaces for the contentious politics that attend enclave economies. The book brings island studies literature into a closer conversation with political and economic geography, demonstrating that islands provide rich spaces for the investigation of the socio-spatial relations at the heart of human geography’s theoretical cannon. The book also has a real-world policy edge, as the sustained and growing dominance of extractive industries, in concert with the highly contentious politics that they engender, places them at the centre of efforts to understand state formation, political reordering and the on-going negotiation of political settlements of various types throughout post-colonial Melanesia. It considers how extractive resource industries can shape processes of state formation, shedding new light on Melanesia’s resource curse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811081194
Publisher:	Springer Nature Singapore
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	148
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Matthew G. Allen is Professor of Development Studies at the University of the South Pacific. He is a human geographer with over twenty years experience working in the Melanesian Pacific, and has previously held a number of academic appointments at the Australian National University.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Panguna and the Bougainville Crisis.- Reopening Panguna.- The Solomon Islands “Tension”.- Mining in Contemporary Solomon Islands.- Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A brilliant political ecology of the violent world of Melanesian extractive economies. Matthew Allen's superb ethnography exposes how the contentious politics of mining operates across multiple scales producing in turn complex and unstable governable spaces.” (Michael J Watts, “Class of 1963” Emeritus Professor of Geography and Development Studies, The University of California, Berkeley, USA)

“A fascinating and innovative critical political geography of the intersections of mining, culture and violence in two significant resource frontiers.” (John Connell, Professor of Geography, University of Sydney, Australia)