ABSTRACT

This timely volume examines resistance to natural resource extraction from a critical ethnographic perspective. Using a range of case studies from North, Central and South America, Australia, and Central Asia, the contributors explore how and why resistance movements seek to change extraction policies, evaluating their similarities, differences, successes and failures. A range of ongoing debates concerning environmental justice, risk and disaster, sacrifice zones, and the economic cycles of boom and bust are considered, and the roles of governments, free markets and civil society groups re-examined.

Incorporating contributions from authors in the fields of anthropology, public policy, environmental health, and community-based advocacy, ExtrACTION offers a robustly argued case for change. It will make engaging reading for academics and students in the fields of critical anthropology, public policy, and politics, as well as activists and other interested citizens.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

Confronting Extraction, Taking Action

part I|46 pages

Histories & Trajectories

chapter 1|14 pages

The Great Crew Change?

Structuring Work in the Oilfield

chapter 2|15 pages

Mega-mining Sovereignty

Landscapes of Power and Protest in Uruguay’s New Extractivist Frontier

chapter 3|15 pages

Marcellus Shale as Golden Goose

The Discourse of Development and the Marginalization of Resistance in Northcentral Pennsylvania

part II|60 pages

Risks & Rights

chapter 4|14 pages

Bounded Impacts, Boundless Promise

Environmental Impact Assessments of Oil Production in the Ecuadorian Amazon

chapter 6|15 pages

Contingent Legal Futures

Does the Ability to Exercise Aboriginal Rights and Title Turn on the Price of Gold?

chapter 7|13 pages

Corexit to Forget It

Transforming Coastal Louisiana into an Energy Sacrifice Zone

part III|45 pages

Struggles & Opportunities

chapter 8|14 pages

With or Without Railway?

Post-catastrophe Perceptions of Risk and Development in Lac-Mégantic, Québec

chapter 9|14 pages

Bringing Country Back?

Indigenous Aspirations and Ecological Values in Australian Mine-Site Rehabilitation

part IV|60 pages

Alternative Futures

chapter 11|15 pages

Images of Harm, Imagining Justice

Gold Mining Contestation in Kyrgyzstan

chapter 13|13 pages

Unconventional Action and Community Control

Rerouting Dependencies Despite the Hydrocarbon Economy

chapter 14|16 pages

Toward Transition?

Challenging Extractivism and the Politics of the Inevitable on the Navajo Nation

chapter |4 pages

Afterword

An Open Letter to ExtrACTIVISTs