ABSTRACT
Extractivism is produced by and produces different forms of violence. Our conceptual understanding of violence matters, as it highlights or sidelines certain struggles over extractive practices. In this chapter, we debate notions of violence in conjunction with extractivism by scrutinizing its temporal, spatial, and normative dimensions, aiming to contribute to a better theoretical and conceptual understanding of manifestations of violence. First, violence has an essential temporal dimension. It disrupts continuity and circularity in the form of “fast,” abrupt, and exceptional violence or incrementally transforms the future in the form of “slow,” mundane, and invisible violence. Second, violence manifests in certain places yet the terms violent extractivism/extractive violence alludes to interconnections across various spaces and places of extractive practices. Space directs attention not only to hierarchies such as global companies or state governments that are often represented as global “bad,” and local resistance often depicted as the “good” side of extractivist politics. Third, the term violence is inherently normative. It often shows an underlying assumption that extractivist practices necessarily lead to violent conflicts and focuses on visible forms of violence. This could preclude seeing the forms of resistance that nonetheless or despite violent extractivism persist, such as the potential for agency or alternative thinking and ways of development. A debate around these dimensions leads to more reflexivity about our scholarly responsibility. It is an ethical responsibility of scholars critically to engage with the conceptualization of violence and what it makes visible and what remains invisible.
Keywords: violence, extraction, extractivism, Anthropocene, resources
