Extinction in transition: coca, coal, and the production of enmity in Colombia's post-peace accords environment

At the Paris Climate Summit in 2015, then Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos proposed constructing a multi-national biodiversity corridor that would extend from the Andes to the Brazilian Atlantic coast. Santos highlighted increased militarization of the territory as one advantage of the corridor. In this model, ecological conservation becomes a matter of national/natural security, in the form of counterinsurgency to counter illegal economies. Climate change and ecological disaster mean the forest needs the military power of the State to save it from destruction. We argue that such conservation entails a form of necropolitics lying in wait; because to conserve one part is to condemn the other – framed as the enemy – to certain destruction, as land is simultaneously designated for large-scale development projects. Conservation, in effect, becomes tied to a form of extinction. Our article examines two increasingly militarized frontiers that work through conservation in Colombia. The first is where the Andes meets the Amazon rainforest, an area that has seen an increase in deforestation following the 2016 Peace Agreement with the FARC. Deforestation is often attributed to the cultivation of coca (used to produce cocaine), and the solution posited by the government is to eradicate the plant. We argue that eradication of illicit crops is a form of enforced extinction that militarizes the forest, targeting both human and non-human inhabitants. The second frontier concerns coal mining on the Caribbean coast, where mass environmental devastation induced by the industry has led to a forced reorganization of life in the region. The military guards the sites of extraction and those who oppose coal mining become targets for elimination. We bring these two cases – coal and coca – into dialogue, to trace the extinction-driven expansion of extractive economies, a process intertwined with armed conflict, narcotrafficking, and now with transitional politics.

Cutting the Supply of Climate Injustice

This article considers the role of activism and politics to restrict the supply of fossil fuels as a key means to prevent further climate injustices. We firstly explore the historical production of climate injustice through extractive economies of colonial control, the accumulation of climate debts, and ongoing patterns of uneven exchange. We develop an account which highlights the relationship between the production, exchange, and consumption of fossil fuels and historical and contemporary inequalities around race, class, and gender which need to be addressed if a meaningful account of climate justice is to take root. We then explore the role of resistance to the expansion of fossil-fuel frontiers and campaigns to leave fossil fuels in the ground with which we are involved. We reflect on their potential role in enabling the power shifts necessary to rebalance energy economies and disrupt incumbent actors as a prerequisite to the achievement of climate justice

Marginal cities in conflict: emerging geographies of spatial accumulation

This paper discusses how marginal cities surrounded by rich hinterlands in geographies of conflict display city-building processes that transform them into emergent geographies of spatial accumulation. Embracing recent debates on geographies of accumulation in the global South, this paper reveals three interrelated strategies that shape capitalist urbanisation in marginal cities of conflict. The empirical findings of a case study in the Colombian Pacific region indicate that: 1) extractive economies supported by national neoliberal policies nurture weak governance, as reflected in city-building processes that increase sociospatial segregation; 2) the circulation of illegal capital within status quo spatial politics seems to result in rapid urban transformations via land use changes; and 3) spatial accumulation in marginal urban settlements conceals processes of systematic social injustice through euphemisms of economic development. This paper contributes to new conceptualisations derived from an analysis of spatial transformations in marginal(ised) cities under geopolitical economies of violence.

THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE YUGOSLAV AND TURKISH ECONOMIES’ GROWTH IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD (1918-1941)

In the interwar period, Turkey and Yugoslavia, despite all their differences, have approximately similar economic performance. Namely, during the 1930s, the two countries recorded very similar levels of the most important indicator of the state of an economy, which implicitly indicates the level of living standards, GDP per capita (at purchasing power parity). Yugoslavia, like Turkey, was a predominantly agrarian country with underdeveloped industry, where the main aggravating factors for more intensive economic development was, in addition to the lack of capital, the insufficiency of skilled labor, and rapid population growth. Despite the significant progress made in industry and mining, both countries have retained the characteristics of industrially underdeveloped or agrarian-extractive economies, with only about 11% of employees in industry and crafts activities. Despite the above-average GDP growth per capita of Turkey of 1.8% in the period 1913-1939, and the average one for Yugoslavia (1.1%), at the end of the observed period they remained at a very low relative level looking at GDP per capita, and consequently among the most underdeveloped countries in Europe.

Sustaining the European Bioeconomy: The Material Base and Extractive Relations of a Bio-Based EU-Economy

This chapter explores the implications of a growing need for biomass inputs for the transnational relations of the European bioeconomy. In order to do so, transnational material flows into the European bioeconomy are analysed from a world systems perspective. This puts the European bioeconomy in relation to extractive economies mainly in the (semi-)peripheries of the capitalist world system. Most of the biomass consumed in the EU today is produced domestically, but imports represent 16% of total supply. Material flows in the form of commodity imports to the EU are analysed as extractive relations between the EU and its biomass suppliers. As the potential for increased domestic production in the EU is small, biomass imports are expected to become even more important in the context of a growing bioeconomy. The extractive relations constituted by existing material flows call into question the social and ecological sustainability of bioeconomy transition.

Extractive economies, institutions, and development

Extractive economies can use the natural resource dividend for infrastructure and sustainable development, which involves overcoming many challenges. This chapter sees the BRICS countries as natural resource rich economies that have not yet signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Analysis of the relationship between resource dependence and the Human Development Index for the period 1990–2015 is reported, suggesting that non-resource rich countries tend to have higher values than resource rich countries. Using as case studies two countries that have joined the initiative (Norway and Mongolia) and two emerging economies that have not (Botswana and Chile), as well as one of the BRICS countries (Brazil), some successes and challenges in using natural resource wealth are highlighted. Governance indicators suggest that transparency initiatives can be helpful. Links between extractive economies, policies, institutions, and human development outcomes are complex, requiring long-term policies and commitment. Three specific policy issues for BRICS are identified.

Women and Migration

African women’s experiences of migration and transregional movements have long been eclipsed by men’s histories of travel and journeying. However, this certainly does not mean that women have not historically participated in geographical movement, both with their families and independently. Reasons for women’s migratory practices are divergent, and they are informed by a kaleidoscope of shifting historical internal and external sociopolitical forces. Some of these include escape from violent conflict and war, slavery, environmental and economic hardship, and oppressive family constraints. The colonial era marked a period of intense migration in which men were forcibly moved to labor within extractive economies. Women, for their part, sometimes migrated without the approval of their own families, and against the colonial administration’s sanctions. Their experiences were shaped by struggles against all forms of patriarchal authority. As a result of changing demographics and social roles, the colonial city also assumed a reputation among colonials and Africans as a space of moral depravity motivated by consumer culture. Consequently, migrant women often faced stigma when they entered cities, and sometimes when they returned home. Women were attracted to towns and cities and what they came to represent—spaces where new opportunities could be explored. Opportunity came in the form of economic independence, marriage, romantic liaisons, and education. Most migrant women were confronted with being marginalized to the domestic sphere and informal sector. However, many women also acquired and honed their market acumen, amassing wealth which they often reinvested in family networks back in their natal villages, thus revealing circular modes of migration associated with multilocal networks.