Apologies for cross-posting.
AAG 2009, Call for Papers: Geographies of Extraction, the State, and
Development in Africa.
Session Organizers: Rohit Negi, Ohio State University and Tomas
Frederiksen, University of Manchester.
Recent analyses, and media interest in the rise of Asian investment
flows around the world, have drawn attention to the role of extractive
industries in shaping the political and physical landscapes of African
countries (Bond 2006, Ferguson 2005, Watts 2004). More than any other
sector, the space economy of African countries has been conditioned by
shifting patterns and configurations of extractive industry-state
relations.
This session seeks to explore these shifting geographies of resource
extraction, the state and development in Africa in the light of recent
developments in geographical theory around the themes of the political
ecology of extractive industries (Peet and Watts 2004, Prudham 2005),
their linkages with the broader political economy, in particular the
neoliberalizing tendencies (Castree 2006, Mansfield 2007) of African
states, and the relationships between state power/craft and resource
extraction (McCarthy 2007, Coronil 1997, Watts 2004). While the themes
of governance, regulation and extractive industry are clearly evident
in this work, little of it seeks to understand the different phases of
extractive industries in Africa, unpick the contradictory and mutually-
constitutive relationship between extractive industries and African
states or explore these shifts in light of their developmental
implications. This session seeks to engage these developments in the
context of resource extraction in Africa.
Papers for this session might therefore address (but are not
restricted to) the following questions:
- What are the relationships between specific forms of governance/
governmentality and resource extraction in Africa?
- What are the geographies and spatialities of extraction being
(re)configured today?
- In what ways is the current expansion comparable to or distinct from
other historical moments in the development of extractive industries
in Africa?
- What are the implications for development of specific state-
extractive industry configurations?
Please send an abstract by 5th October, 2008 to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
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Tomas Frederiksen
Geography
School of Environment and Development
University of Manchester
Manchester
M13 9PL
United Kingdom
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/postgraduate/research/currentstudents/frederiksen_tomas.htm
Society and Environment Research Group, University of Manchester
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/SERG.htm
Geographical Political Economy Research Group, University of Manchester
http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/research/gpe/
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