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

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...