ABSTRACT

Presenting a broad range of case studies, this book explores rural social movements contesting natural resource development initiatives.

Natural resource development takes multiple forms, including infrastructure corridors, mines, dams, resource processing plants and pipelines. Many of which are driven by economic valuations, whilst social and environmental effects are given limited consideration. In this volume the authors discuss the emergence, process and outcomes of social movements with respect to these natural resource development projects, including examples of confrontation seeking to either block developments or promote alternative development approaches, such as agritourism. The examples taken from Africa, Asia, North America, Europe and Latin America demonstrate the diversity of struggles stimulated by natural resource development, including both immediate and longer-term effects, repertoires of action, political and cultural work. Taken together the case studies provide a rich overview of current movements engaged in resisting the neoliberal agenda of global resource exploitation.

This book will be key reading for scholars interested in social movements, natural resource development, environmental policy and development studies. It will also be of interest to activists engaged in mobilizations stimulated by natural resource development projects.

chapter 1|20 pages

Introduction

Social movements and natural resources

chapter 2|21 pages

Peasant collective action against disembedding land

The case of Niassa Province, Mozambique

chapter 4|23 pages

Confronting neoliberal resource policy

Mining conflict and coal politics in Bangladesh

chapter 5|15 pages

Local struggles for the coproduction of natural capital

Payment for forest environmental services in Central Vietnam

chapter 6|14 pages

Beyond the swans

Cellulose extraction, social mobilization, and environmental transformations in southern Chile

chapter 7|21 pages

‘No oil in our soil!’

Shifting narratives from commodities to the commons in Iowa, USA

chapter 8|18 pages

Discursive framing and community mobilization

Stopping the Melancthon Mega Quarry in Ontario, Canada

chapter 10|16 pages

Agritourism in Poland

A new social movement