Resource curse? governmentality, oil and power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Watts, Michael

doi:10.1080/14650040412331307832

Cited by 565 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…It is widely argued that the benefits of oil exploration and production accrued to the government have not trickled down to local communities (Watts 2004;Oviasuyi and Uwadiae 2010). The major factor governing the sharing formula is derivation: the proportion of the nation's wealth given back to the source region.…”

Section: Benefits Accruing To Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

2015

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The Niger Delta wetlands are of international importance for their biodiversity, and support a large human population. The value and distribution of wetland ecosystem service benefits and costs across the three main stakeholder sectors (local community, government and corporate) were investigated. Results show that the net monetary value of the wetlands is $11,000 per delta household of which $9,000 was generated as cash income supporting household activities such as education and healthcare. The total annual value of provisioning services to local people is approximately $25 billion, about three times the value of oil production in the region. However, local communities also bear about 75% of the environmental costs of oil extraction, equivalent to about 19% of the oil industry profit. Local people, who experience considerable economic hardship and lack alternative income sources, receive little compensation from the oil sector. These results highlight the importance of understanding not only the benefits provided by Niger Delta wetlands, but also the distribution of the environmental costs associated with their use. We conclude that ecosystem service valuation studies should give greater attention to the social distribution of identified values. Such distributional analyses, rarely available, provide insight into how sustainable natural resource management policy and practice could be better aligned to social justice concerns.

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Section: Benefits Accruing To Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

2015

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“…The emergence of the 'landowning group' as the fundamental unit of social and political organisation within the nation-state, and the changing balance of power between 'customary landowners' and government bodies in the negotiation of benefit-sharing agreements, are examples of the scale-making powers of extractive industry projects in resource frontiers or resource-dependent economies (Tsing 2005). While the flow of revenues from such projects has not induced the same degree of political fragmentation in PNG and Solomon Islands as has been documented in Nigeria (Watts 2004), it has still induced an escalation of ethno-territorial claims by representatives of the neo-traditional social order (Allen 2013). …”

Section: Two Points About Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Powers of Exclusion in Melanesia

Filer¹,

McDonnell²,

Allen³

2017

Kastom, Property and Ideology

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“…Rossport matters, because it is a dispute about ownership and use of natural resources; because it illustrates the threats posed to local communities by a powerful coalition of state and capital; and because, as a consequence, it raises questions of scalar politics and power. In this way, Rossport is part of a longer tradition in geography that focuses on place-based conflicts and struggles (for some recent examples, see Davies, 2005Davies, , 2006Perreault, 2003;Watts, 2004a;Zaup, 2008). The question of how political geographers should engage with this story is, perhaps, more difficult to answer.…”

Section: Insert Fig 1 About Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Border thinking: Rossport, Shell and the political geographies of a gas pipeline

Gilmartin

2009

Political Geography

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Rossport is a small, sparsely populated rural area in the West of Ireland. Over the past seven years, some of its residents have been engaged in a struggle against the building of a gas pipeline through their locality by multinational corporations, including Shell and Statoil. Their struggle has garnered opposition and support within Ireland and internationally. This paper takes the story of Rossport as the starting point for a broader discussion of epistemology within political geography. Drawing on the work of Walter Mignolo, in particular his ideas about 'border thinking' and the 'decoloniality of knowledge', it argues that Rossport offers the possibility for a redeployment of postcolonial thought within political geography.

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Resource curse? governmentality, oil and power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Cited by 565 publications

References 13 publications

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

Inequality and ecosystem services: The value and social distribution of Niger Delta wetland services

Powers of Exclusion in Melanesia

Border thinking: Rossport, Shell and the political geographies of a gas pipeline

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