The Anthropology of Extraction: Critical Perspectives on the Resource Curse

Abstract

Attempts to address the resource curse remain focussed on revenue management, seeking technical solutions to political problems over examinations of relations of power. In this paper, we provide a review of the contribution anthropological research has made over the past decade to understanding the dynamic interplay of social relations, economic interests and struggles over power at stake in the political economy of extraction. In doing so, we show how the constellation of subaltern and elite agency at work within processes of resource extraction is vital in order to confront the complexities, incompatibilities, and inequities in the exploitation of mineral resources.

Transnational power and translocal governance: The politics of corporate responsibility

“…Rather, PCSR as a form of global governance is more likely to result in corporate capture of the public sphere (Gilberthorpe and Rajak, 2017).…”

The Resource Curse - What Have We Learned from Two Decades of Intensive Research: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The paper by Gilberthorpe and Rajak (2017) provides a review of the contribution anthropological research has made over the past two decades to the resource curse literature; particularly in understanding the dynamic interplay of social relations, economic interests and struggles over power in the political economy of extraction. They claim that the anthropology of extraction has shown how global flows of resource capital unsettle, entrench or generate new forms of dependence, patronage and clientelism locally.…”

“…While the papers by Gilberthorpe and Rajak (2017) and van der Ploeg and Poelhekke (2017) concentrate attention to past research, his paper proposes new avenues for future research. He discusses how, in the absence of an active government communications policy, psychological biases interact with resource discoveries to generate mass opinions that contribute to resource curse phenomena.…”

“…While many papers in the literature link the resource curse to the failure of foreign mining multinationals to induce a trickle-down effect to the rest of economy (see the review paper by Gilberthorpe & Rajak (2017) in this special issue), Hilson and Laing also show that 'going small and local' is not necessarily the ideal blueprint for sustained economic development. Their analysis demonstrates how a gold mining economy built around local small-scale operators does not avoid the resource curse pitfalls, at least in the absence of a strong institutional framework that discourages rent-seeking, constrains excessive spending, supports economic diversification and avoids the concentration of wealth in the hands of few mineral-dependent elites.…”

A Review on the Resource Curse

“…Labelled as the anthropology of the resource curse, research agenda aims to recontextualize the process of extraction in its social embedment and emphasises the significance of corporate responsibility. (Gilberthorpe and Rajak, 2016) Despite the thriving literature on curse, there are still serious controversies to be solved. Future research should be more focused on the measures of resource endowment to address the endogeneity problem and distinguish between abundance and dependency.…”