Contentious Agency and Natural Resource Politics

190 Pages·2013·1.59 MB·English

by  Markus Kröger

Contentious Agency and Natural
Resource Politics
The looming depletion of non-renewable resources has increased the global
land grab in the past decade. So far, however, the question of how and when
people can influence economic outcomes has received little attention in the
studyof social movements.
Based on in-depth ethnographic field research since 2003 in the industrial
forestry expansion frontiers in Brazil and elsewhere in the global South, this
book presents a novel theory to explain how the interaction between resis-
tance, companies and the state determines investment outcomes. The promo-
tion of contentious agency by organizing and politicizing, campaigning,
protesting, networking and engaging in state and corporate-remediated poli-
tics whilst maintaining autonomy is central to explaining how impacted
peopleinfluenceresourceflows,andblockorslowprojectstheydeemharmful
to their livelihoods and the environment. The conflicts between globalizing
paper and pulp corporations and the landless peasants, indigenous commu-
nities and other parties with alternative projects for the planet’s future are
studied to illustrate how a great transformation can be built upon progressive
counter-movements. This systematic comparison of several cases illustrates
the broader principles and problems endemic to the global political economy.
Contentious Agency and Natural Resource Politicswill be of strong interest
to students and scholars of international relations, international political
economy, environmental studies, environmental politics, sociology and social
movement studies.
Markus Kröger is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at the
Department of Political and Economic Studies at the University of Helsinki,
Finland.
Rethinking Globalizations
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BorrasJr. MarkusKröger
Contentious Agency and
Natural Resource Politics
Markus Kröger
Firstpublished2014
byRoutledge
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p.cm.–(Rethinkingglobalizations;47)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Naturalresources–Politicalaspects.2.Landuse–Politicalaspects.
3.Politicalparticipation.4.Socialaction.I.Title.
HC85.K762013
333.7–dc23
2012050444
ISBN:978-0-415-65967-3(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-76673-6(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements x
List of abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
1 Theory of contentious agency in natural resource politics 12
2 Accumulation by dispossession in resource exploitation
frontiers: The case of industrial forestry in Brazil 36
3 Contentious agency, the Brazilian landless movement
and pulp conflict outcomes 58
4 Political games determining resource exploitation
pace and style 87
5 Key characters in contemporaryglobal expansion of resource
exploitation, illustrated by conflicts over tree plantations 109
Conclusion: The role of resistance in natural resource politics 137
References 153
Index 169
Illustrations
Figures
I.1 Veracel’s eucalyptus plantations in cutting phase in Eunápolis,
Bahia, Brazil, April 2011 9
1.1 The virtuous cycle of contentious agency promoting strategies 15
1.2 Economic outcomes as a result of political games 24
2.1 The correlation of state financing and pulp/eucalyptus plantation
expansion per year in Brazil, 1996–2007 43
2.2 Veracel pulp mill from the inside, Eunápolis, July 2006. The
bleached pulp is ready to be shipped to the world 44
2.3 Members of a Brazilian Landless Rural Workers’ Movement
(MST) camp in northeastern Rio de Janeiro, March 2004 50
2.4 Veracel’s outgrower eucalyptus plantation, Eunápolis, Bahia,
Brazil, June 2004 53
3.1 La Vía Campesina Women’s Stora Enso plantation occupation,
Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 8 March
2008 72
3.2 Steps of state embedding by a movement: the influence of
movement embedding with the state apparatus on resource use 76
3.3 MSTcamp in PinheiroMachado, Rio Grande do Sul, May 2008.
The MST is pushing for the expropriation of the surrounding
land areas, whereas VCP, a pulp company, tried to buy the land
for eucalyptus and to extend eucalyptus byoutgrowing schemes
even within the nearby MSTsettlements 80
Tables
1.1 Processes, mechanisms and strategies in natural politics 31
2.1 Land access type, land price and dispossession in Brazil,
2006–10 45
2.2 Accumulation by dispossession, and signs of eucalyptus
expansion-related dispossession in Brazil (yes or no),
2004–10 46
Illustrations ix
3.1 Contentious agency promoting strategies and plantation
expansion in 13 pulp holding cases, 2004–08 82
5.1 Global “planted forest” expansion by regions, 1990–2010 113
5.2 Countries with over 800,000 ha of forestry plantations, % of
introduced species, and conflict existence 125