Resource Extraction and Contentious States

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 1-28

3. Panguna and the Bougainville Crisis

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 29-50

4. Reopening Panguna

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 51-79

5. The Solomon Islands “Tension”

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 81-103

6. Mining in Contemporary Solomon Islands

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 105-126

7. Conclusion

   • Matthew G. Allen

   Pages 127-133

8. Back Matter

   Pages 135-148

   PDF

This Pivot offers a comprehensive cross-country study of the effects of large-scale resource extraction in Asia Pacific, considering how large-scale extractive industries engender contentious social, political and economic questions. Addressing the strong association in Melanesia between extractive resource industries and a spectrum of violence ranging from interpersonal to collective forms, it questions whether islands are particularly potent spaces for the contentious politics that attend enclave economies. The book brings island studies literature into a closer conversation with political and economic geography, demonstrating that islands provide rich spaces for the investigation of the socio-spatial relations at the heart of human geography’s theoretical cannon. The book also has a real-world policy edge, as the sustained and growing dominance of extractive industries, in concert with the highly contentious politics that they engender, places them at the centre of efforts to understand state formation, political reordering and the on-going negotiation of political settlements of various types throughout post-colonial Melanesia. It considers how extractive resource industries can shape processes of state formation, shedding new light on Melanesia’s resource curse.

• Large-scale Resource Extraction in Asia
• Environmental Sociology
• Extractive Industries in Asia Pacific
• Social Conflict and Political Violence
• Mining, resource extraction and politics
• Natural Resources and State Formation

“A brilliant political ecology of the violent world of Melanesian extractive economies. Matthew Allen's superb ethnography exposes how the contentious politics of mining operates across multiple scales producing in turn complex and unstable governable spaces.” (Michael J Watts, “Class of 1963” Emeritus Professor of Geography and Development Studies, The University of California, Berkeley, USA)

“A fascinating and innovative critical political geography of the intersections of mining, culture and violence in two significant resource frontiers.” (John Connell, Professor of Geography, University of Sydney, Australia)

• University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

  Matthew G. Allen

Matthew G. Allen is Professor of Development Studies at the University of the South Pacific. He is a human geographer with over twenty years experience working in the Melanesian Pacific, and has previously held a number of academic appointments at the Australian National University. 

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