School of Geography - Research Publications
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ItemSocio-environmental Conflict, Political Settlements, and Mining Governance: A Cross-Border Comparison, El Salvador and Honduras(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2019-03)During the mid-2000s, Honduras and El Salvador implemented mining moratoria. By 2017 El Salvador had legislated a globally unprecedented ban on all forms of metal mining, while in Honduras mining was expanding aggressively. These neighboring countries present the explanatory challenge of understanding the distinct trajectories of mining policy and politics. These divergent pathways can be explained by the interactions between the political economy of subsoil resources, national political settlements, and the ways in which diverse actors have taken advantage (or not) of openings in these settlements. A mediados de la década del 2000, Honduras y El Salvador implementaron moratorias mineras. Para el 2017, El Salvador había legislado una prohibición sin precedentes a nivel mundial de todas las formas de minería de metales, mientras que en Honduras la minería se estaba expandiendo agresivamente. Estos países vecinos presentan el desafío explicativo de comprender las distintas trayectorias de la política minera y la política. Estas vías divergentes pueden explicarse por las interacciones entre la economía política de los recursos del subsuelo, los acuerdos políticos nacionales y las formas en que diversos actores han aprovechado (o no) las aperturas en estos acuerdos.
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ItemTroubling the idealised pageantry of extractive conflicts: Comparative insights on authority and claim-making from Papua New Guinea, Mongolia and El Salvador(PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2021-04)This article challenges simplified and idealised representation of conflicts between corporations, states and impacted populations in the context of extractive industries. Through comparative discussion of mineral extraction in Papua New Guinea, Mongolia and El Salvador, we argue that strategies of engagement over the terms of extraction vary significantly as a result of the interaction between relations of authority and recognition in the context of specific projects and the national political economy of mining. As mineral extraction impinges on their lands, livelihoods, territories and senses of the future, affected populations face the uncertain question of how to respond and to whom to direct these responses. Strategies vary widely, and can involve confrontation, litigation, negotiation, resignation, and patronage. These strategies are targeted at companies, investors, the national state, local government, multilateral institutions, and international arbitrators. We argue that the key to understanding how strategies emerge to target different types and scales of authority, lies ultimately with inherited geographies of state presence and strategic absence. This factor shapes the construction of “community” claim-making in relation to state and non-state authorities, and calculations regarding the relative utility of claiming rights or mobilizing relationships as a means of seeking redress, compensation or benefit sharing. In the context of plural opportunities for claim-making, we query whether plurality is more emancipatory or, ironically, more constricting for impacted populations. In response to this question, we argue that “community” strategies tend to be more effective where they remain linked in some way to the territorial and legislative structure of the national state.
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ItemNegotiating the mine Commitments, engagements, contradictions(Routledge, 2021)This Handbook provides an essential guide to the study of resources and their role in socio-environmental change.
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ItemAssessing impacts of mining: Recent contributions from GIS and remote sensing(ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2019-07)Mining produces several environmental, social, and economic impacts which can be analysed spatially using remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS). This paper provides an overview of recent studies using these techniques to assess mining impacts on water, land, and society. It also highlights the geographic complexities of these impacts via mining case studies, and discusses spatial research methods, data sources, and limitations. Despite noted simplifications, risks, and uncertainties of mapping the impacts of mining, the cases included in our overview illustrate that there are clearly beneficial applications. At a local level, these include environmental and socioeconomic risk assessments, disaster mitigation, and adjudication on mine-related conflicts. At a regional level, spatial analyses can support cumulative and strategic impact assessments. At a global level, spatial analyses can reveal industry-wide land use trends, and provide key land use data for comparative analyses of mining impacts between commodities, locations, and mine configurations. The degree to which such benefits are realised will likely depend on the resources afforded to what is a growing field of study.
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ItemPolitical ecologies of the post-mining landscape: Activism, resistance, and legal struggles over Kalimantan's coal mines(ELSEVIER, 2020-07)This study explores contestation over the meanings, rules and practices of coal mine reclamation and mine closure in the context of East Kalimantan, Indonesia's major coal producing province. As mining intensified in the province, and coal was mined out, concessions were left with large mine voids un-refilled and abandoned without closure – many within close vicinity to human settlements. Following an extended campaign led by a diverse group of social movement actors, utilising various advocacy and litigation strategies, the East Kalimantan legislature adopted a provincial regulation in 2013, reinforcing higher-level regulations that mandate coal mining companies to conduct reclamation and post-mining clean up. The regulation was the first time that activists had directly influenced policy regulating mining at the sub-national level in Indonesia. Yet the policy outcome alone has not been sufficient to shape change: an estimated 1735 coal mine voids remain un-refilled in East Kalimantan, and the number of human fatalities from deaths in mine voids continues to grow. Remediation of mine sites is rarely performed to return land to its pre-mined conditions. By bringing together relevant scholarship in political ecology, the politics of development and legal geography, we analyse the relationships between pact-making, political settlements, contestation and policy reform related to the governance of post-mine landscapes.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableCOVID-19 and the case for global development(PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2020-10)COVID-19 accentuates the case for a global, rather than an international, development paradigm. The novel disease is a prime example of a development challenge for all countries, through the failure of public health as a global public good. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the falsity of any assumption that the global North has all the expertise and solutions to tackle global challenges, and has further highlighted the need for multi-directional learning and transformation in all countries towards a more sustainable and equitable world. We illustrate our argument for a global development paradigm by examining the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic across four themes or 'vignettes': global value chains, digitalisation, debt, and climate change. We conclude that development studies must adapt to a very different context from when the field emerged in the mid-20th century.