The Absent Presence Of The State In Large Scale Resource Extraction Projects

Download or read book The Absent Presence of the State in Large-Scale Resource Extraction Projects written by Nicholas A. Bainton and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standing on the broken ground of resource extraction settings, the state is sometimes like a chimera: its appearance and intentions are misleading and, for some actors, it is unknowable and incomprehensible. It may be easily mistaken for someone or something else, like a mining company, for example. With rich ethnographic material, this volume tackles critical questions about the nature of contemporary states, studied from the perspective of resource extraction projects in Papua New Guinea, Australia and beyond. It brings together a sustained focus on the unstable and often dialectical relationship between the presence and the absence of the state in the context of resource extraction. Across the chapters, contributors discuss cases of proposed mining ventures, existing large-scale mining operations and the extraction of natural gas. Together, they illustrate how the concept of absent presence can be brought to life and how it can enhance our understanding of the state as well as relations and processes forming in extractive contexts, thus providing a novel contribution to the anthropology of the state and the anthropology of extraction. ‘The Absent Presence fills a major gap in our knowledge about the relationship between states and companies – at a time when resource extraction seems to be more contested than ever. Bainton and Skrzypek have curated an incredibly impressive volume that should be read by all those interested in exploring corporate and state power, and the ever-present impacts of extraction. A highly recommended read.’ — Professor Deanna Kemp, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, The University of Queensland ‘Countless books have been written on the sovereign state and how it imposes a particular kind of order on economic and social interactions. What is original and compelling about this collection is the portrait of how two very different states converge when it comes to “extractive ventures”. From the presumption of exclusive sovereignty over mineral resources, to the bargains that are struck with major (often global) corporations, and the relative indifference to environmental impacts, there is a remarkable consistency in the patterns that are referred to as “state effects”. These effects are brought from the background to the foreground in this book through the blending of creative and critical thinking with detailed empirical research.’ — Tim Dunne, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland ‘This brilliant and intriguing title provides a timely contribution to understanding the actual functions and strategies of state (and state-like) institutions in resource arenas. The dialectics of presence-absence and its refractions at different levels and scales of government allow the authors to go beyond stereotypes about the (strong, weak, failed or corrupt) state, highlighting more commonalities than expected between Papua New Guinea and Australia, and even New Caledonia.’ — Dr Pierre-Yves Le Meur, Anthropologist, Senior Researcher, French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Joint Research Unit SENS (Knowledge Environment Society)

Download or read book Handbook of Social Impact Assessment and Management written by Frank Vanclay and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-14 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This carefully conceived Handbook presents a state-of-the-art discussion of the field of social impact assessment (SIA), highlighting contemporary understandings and emerging issues in this continually evolving area of research and practice. Experienced SIA practitioners from around the world share their learnings and advice on a comprehensive range of issues faced in social performance practice.

Download or read book Indigenous Peoples and Mining written by Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenous peoples have occupied their territories for thousands of years, territories that are increasingly being mined by an industry applying the most modern extractive, marketing, and transport technologies on a scale that can be difficult to comprehend. Mining reshapes landscapes, literally moving mountains and diverting rivers; the Indigenous owners of these landscapes often believe them to have been originally shaped by ancestor beings who still reside at mining locations. This book seeks to understand the political, social, economic, and cultural dynamic that is created by the relentless expansion of mining into Indigenous territories. Contributing to such an understanding involves a task of global significance: Indigenous peoples embody a large part of the world's linguistic and cultural diversity; their lands cover an estimated 25 per cent of the world's land surface, intersect with about 40 per cent of all ecologically intact landscapes, and contain a large proportion of the world's mineral resources. Must interaction between Indigenous peoples and mining involve the destruction of Indigenous peoples, territories, and cultures? Can the remarkable resilience that has allowed Indigenous peoples to survive for millennia enable them not only to survive, but to capitalize on the development opportunities offered by mining? What role are governments, international organizations, and civil society playing in shaping relations between mining and Indigenous peoples? Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh addresses these and other questions by drawing on his own 30 years of experience working with Indigenous communities as they deal with mining projects, and on the experiences of Indigenous peoples in some 15 countries from different regions of the globe.

Download or read book The Anthropology of Resource Extraction written by Lorenzo D'Angelo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-01-13 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an overview of the key debates in the burgeoning anthropological literature on resource extraction. Resources play a crucial role in the contemporary economy and society, are required in the production of a vast range of consumer products and are at the core of geopolitical strategies and environmental concerns for the future of humanity. Scholars have widely debated the economic and sociological aspects of resource management in our societies, offering interesting and useful abstractions. However, anthropologists offer different and fresh perspectives – sometimes complementary and at other times alternative to these abstractions – based on field researches conducted in close contact with those actors (individuals as well as groups and institutions) that manipulate, anticipate, fight for, or resist the extractive processes in many creative ways. Thus, while addressing questions such as: "What characterizes the anthropology of resource extraction?", "What topics in the context of resource extraction have anthropologists studied?", and "What approaches and insights have emerged from this?", this book synthesizes and analyses a range of anthropological debates about the ways in which different actors extract, use, manage, and think about resources. This comprehensive volume will serve as a key reading for scholars and students within the social sciences working on resource extraction and those with an interest in natural resources, environment, capitalism, and globalization. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners within mining and development.

Download or read book Small Islands in Peril? written by Colin Filer and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2024-07-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the idea that small island communities could be regarded as canaries in the coal mine of sustainable development because of scientific and anecdotal evidence of a common link between rapid population growth, degradation of the local resource base, and intensification of disputes over the ownership and use of terrestrial and marine resources. The authors are all anthropologists with a specific interest in the question of whether the economic and social ‘safety valves’ that have previously served to break some of the feedback loops between these trends appear to be losing their efficacy. While much of the debate about economy–society–environment relationships on small islands has been overtaken by a narrow focus on the problem of climate change, the authors show that there are many other factors at work in the transformation of island lives and livelihoods.

Download or read book Before Environmental Law written by Benjamin J Richardson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark book unveils the history of defending Australia's natural environment and examines the subject's legal and political contexts from the birth of the nation in 1901 until the advent of the so-called modern era of environmental regulation in the late 1960s. It rejects the mythology that Australia lacked environmental law before the late 1960s in revealing how many of today's environmental laws, from pollution control to nature conservation, emerged from precedents or events much earlier in the 20th century. This history however reveals a discrepancy between lawmakers' greater efficacy to exploit rather than protect the environment, a discrepancy that grew as nature's backlash intensified in a rapidly degrading continent colonised to build the Australian nation. In exploring these dynamics, the book offers a rich tapestry of case studies illustrated with historic photographs that show the origins of Australia's environmental laws and how they borrowed from international precedents or furnished lessons for other nations. Through its multi-disciplinary enquiry, the book offers scholars and students of environmental law, legal history and the environmental humanities a unique story about the failures and successes in the making of environmental law.

Download or read book Law and the Epistemologies of the South written by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and published by . This book was released on 2023-08-09 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern state law excludes populations, peoples, and social groups by making them invisible, irrelevant, or dangerous. In this book, Boaventura de Sousa Santos offers a radical critique of the law and develops an innovative paradigm of socio-legal studies which is based on the historical experience of the Global South. He traces the history of modern law as an abyssal law, or a kind of law that is theoretically invisible yet implements profound exclusions in practice. This abyssal line has been the key procedure used by modern modes of domination - capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy - to divide people into two groups, the metropolitan and the colonial, or the fully human and the sub-human. Crucially, de Sousa Santos rejects the decadent pessimism that claims that we are living through 'the end of history'. Instead, this book offers practical, hopeful alternatives to social exclusion and modern legal domination, aiming to make post-abyssal legal utopias a reality.