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Denise Humphreys Bebbington

Bio: Denise Humphreys Bebbington is an academic researcher from Clark University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social movement & Resource curse. The author has an hindex of 18, co-authored 31 publications receiving 1936 citations. Previous affiliations of Denise Humphreys Bebbington include University of Colorado Boulder & American University.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development, and describe different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change.
Abstract: The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development. They then describe the different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change. The conclusions address how far such protests might contribute to an ‘escape’ from the resource curse, and consider implications for research and policy agendas.

471 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the presence and nature of social movements has significant influences both on forms taken by extractive industries (in this case mining) and on the effects of this extraction on rural livelihoods.

369 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the presence and nature of social movements has significant influences both on forms taken by extractive industries (in this case mining), and on the effects of this extraction on rural livelihoods.
Abstract: Social movements have been viewed as vehicles through which the concerns of poor and marginalised groups are given greater visibility within civil society, lauded for being the means to achieve local empowerment and citizen activism, and seen as essential in holding the state to account and constituting a grassroots mechanism for promoting democracy. However, within development studies little attention has been paid to understanding how social movements can affect trajectories of development and rural livelihood in given spaces, and how these effects are related to movements' internal dynamics and their interaction with the broader environment within which they operate. This paper addresses this theme for the case of social movements protesting contemporary forms of mining investment in Latin America. On the basis of cases from Peru and Ecuador, the paper argues that the presence and nature of social movements has significant influences both on forms taken by extractive industries (in this case mining), and on the effects of this extraction on rural livelihoods. In this sense one can usefully talk about rural development as being co-produced by movements, mining companies and other actors, in particular the state. The terms of this co-production, however, vary greatly among different locations, reflecting the distinct geographies of social mobilisation and of mineral investment, as well as the varying power relationships among the different actors involved.

300 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the convergence among the different regimes' ways of governing extraction and socio-environmental conflicts is discussed. And the authors draw on Executive level statements and policy positions as well as on statements by indigenous peoples' organisations.
Abstract: Recent years have seen increasingly aggressive expansion of extractive industry in the Andean-Amazonian region. Reminiscent of the film Avatar, this expansion drives conflicts over land, territory and political control of space. This expansion is occurring in both overtly neoliberal regimes and in self-consciously post-neoliberal ones. This essay documents the convergence among the different regimes' ways of governing extraction and socio-environmental conflicts. We draw on Executive level statements and policy positions as well as on statements by indigenous peoples' organisations. Among the reasons for this apparent convergence are: long-standing resource curse effects; the need to generate resources to finance social policy instruments that are integral to the governments' overall political strategies; power and information asymmetries among companies and governments; and international relations. The convergences among Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru regarding the governance of extraction and the conflicts t...

220 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Geospatial and qualitative data are used to explain how infrastructure and extractive industry lead directly and indirectly to deforestation, forest degradation, and increasingly precarious rights for forest peoples in Amazonia, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica.
Abstract: Mineral and hydrocarbon extraction and infrastructure are increasingly significant drivers of forest loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and threats to the rights of forest communities in forested areas of Amazonia, Indonesia, and Mesoamerica. Projected investments in these sectors suggest that future threats to forests and rights are substantial, particularly because resource extraction and infrastructure reinforce each other and enable population movements and agricultural expansion further into the forest. In each region, governments have made framework policy commitments to national and cross-border infrastructure integration, increased energy production, and growth strategies based on further exploitation of natural resources. This reflects political settlements among national elites that endorse resource extraction as a pathway toward development. Regulations that protect forests, indigenous and rural peoples’ lands, and conservation areas are being rolled back or are under threat. Small-scale gold mining has intensified in specific locations and also has become a driver of deforestation and degradation. Forest dwellers’ perceptions of insecurity have increased, as have documented homicides of environmental activists. To explain the relationships among extraction, infrastructure, and forests, this paper combines a geospatial analysis of forest loss overlapped with areas of potential resource extraction, interviews with key informants, and feedback from stakeholder workshops. The increasing significance of resource extraction and associated infrastructure as drivers of forest loss and rights violations merits greater attention in the empirical analyses and conceptual frameworks of Sustainability Science.

115 citations


Cited by
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Journal Article
Aaron Pollack1
TL;DR: This article argued that the British Empire was a " liberal" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade.
Abstract: From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

2,001 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: New State Spaces as discussed by the authors is a mature and sophisticated analysis of broad interdisciplinary interest, making this a highly significant contribution to the subject of political geographies of the modern state, which has been made in the past few years.
Abstract: Neil Brenner has in the past few years made a major impact on the ways in which we understand the changing political geographies of the modern state Simultaneously analyzing the restructuring of urban governance and the transformation of national states under globalizing capitalism, 'New State Spaces' is a mature and sophisticated analysis of broad interdisciplinary interest, making this a highly significant contribution to the subject

951 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The condition of rural populations in much of the global South is indeed dire-most of the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day live in the countryside as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: too fine for undergraduate readers who are new to agrarian debates. On the whole, however, the book is accessible and deserves to be widely read. The condition of rural populations in much of the global South is indeed dire-most of the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day live in the countryside. This book offers many important insights into why this is the case, and how the current regime of global capitalism works against a repetition of the agrarian transition that brought wealth and security to the global North.

596 citations