Pub Date : 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2026.101850
Felicia Achamah , Ekow Bartels
This commentary raises several important concerns about the operationalisation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury – a United Nations treaty that commits ratifying countries to address mercury emission sources, with significant emphasis on artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) – in sub-Saharan Africa. On the one hand, methylmercury is toxic, and therefore, exposure to it must be minimised at all costs. On the other hand, and as explained in depth in the literature, individuals engaged in ASGM across sub-Saharan Africa depend on mercury to amalgamate their gold; the proceeds from its sales are relied upon by hundreds of thousands of the region’s families for their incomes. The concern moving forward, however, is that there are few viable substitutes for mercury in ASGM: it is inexpensive and effective, and access to it ultimately facilitates improved livelihoods (by sustaining gold production in the sector). These challenges are explored more closely through a case study of Ghana, the location of one of the largest ASGM sectors in sub-Saharan Africa.
{"title":"Mercury management at artisanal and small-scale gold mines in sub-Saharan Africa: Some key challenges for donors and policymakers","authors":"Felicia Achamah , Ekow Bartels","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2026.101850","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2026.101850","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This commentary raises several important concerns about the operationalisation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury – a United Nations treaty that commits ratifying countries to address mercury emission sources, with significant emphasis on artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) – in sub-Saharan Africa. On the one hand, methylmercury is toxic, and therefore, exposure to it must be minimised at all costs. On the other hand, and as explained in depth in the literature, individuals engaged in ASGM across sub-Saharan Africa depend on mercury to amalgamate their gold; the proceeds from its sales are relied upon by hundreds of thousands of the region’s families for their incomes. The concern moving forward, however, is that there are few viable substitutes for mercury in ASGM: it is inexpensive and effective, and access to it ultimately facilitates improved livelihoods (by sustaining gold production in the sector). These challenges are explored more closely through a case study of Ghana, the location of one of the largest ASGM sectors in sub-Saharan Africa.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101850"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145977367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the socio-ecological impacts of oil and gas activities in four communities in the Niger Delta using a political ecology lens and environmental justice perspective. Drawing on participatory mapping, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews, the study reveals that community exposure to extractive infrastructure is both spatial and structural—defined not just by proximity to pipelines and facilities but also by systemic neglect, weak governance, and infrastructural deficits. The concept of “structural exposure” is introduced to explain how absence of services (e.g., roads, hospitals, potable water) amplifies harm in affected communities, while the idea of “exposure displacement” captures how ecological pressure migrates when resource users are pushed into contested or degraded areas. These dynamics deepen environmental and livelihood vulnerabilities and are often mediated by institutional inaction.
Findings highlight a range of community impacts—environmental degradation, cultural erosion, psychological stress, and socio-political disempowerment—as well as coping strategies such as artisanal refining, self-medication, and overexploitation of non-oil resources. These responses, while pragmatic, are often maladaptive, reinforcing cycles of vulnerability in the absence of state or corporate support. The analysis shows that harm is not evenly distributed but shaped by differentiated access to institutional protection, reinforcing patterns of environmental injustice. By linking these lived experiences to broader policy and governance failures, this article offers a grounded empirical base for subsequent governance and actor-network analysis and contributes to global debates on extractivism, vulnerability, and environmental justice.
{"title":"Geonarratives: Mapping local perspectives on the socio-ecological realities of extractivism in the Niger Delta","authors":"Oluwatosin Olayioye , Amy Diedrich , Maxine Newlands , Jane Addison","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101847","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101847","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines the socio-ecological impacts of oil and gas activities in four communities in the Niger Delta using a political ecology lens and environmental justice perspective. Drawing on participatory mapping, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews, the study reveals that community exposure to extractive infrastructure is both spatial and structural—defined not just by proximity to pipelines and facilities but also by systemic neglect, weak governance, and infrastructural deficits. The concept of “structural exposure” is introduced to explain how absence of services (e.g., roads, hospitals, potable water) amplifies harm in affected communities, while the idea of “exposure displacement” captures how ecological pressure migrates when resource users are pushed into contested or degraded areas. These dynamics deepen environmental and livelihood vulnerabilities and are often mediated by institutional inaction.</div><div>Findings highlight a range of community impacts—environmental degradation, cultural erosion, psychological stress, and socio-political disempowerment—as well as coping strategies such as artisanal refining, self-medication, and overexploitation of non-oil resources. These responses, while pragmatic, are often maladaptive, reinforcing cycles of vulnerability in the absence of state or corporate support. The analysis shows that harm is not evenly distributed but shaped by differentiated access to institutional protection, reinforcing patterns of environmental injustice. By linking these lived experiences to broader policy and governance failures, this article offers a grounded empirical base for subsequent governance and actor-network analysis and contributes to global debates on extractivism, vulnerability, and environmental justice.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101847"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145977368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2026.101851
Augustine Gyan
{"title":"","authors":"Augustine Gyan","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2026.101851","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2026.101851","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101851"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101841
James Purtill , Vigya Sharma , Guy Boggs
Every mining jurisdiction in Australia expects mined land to be progressively rehabilitated to achieve a safe, stable, non-polluting landform, capable of sustaining a post-mining land use. Resource communities, especially those extracting carbon-intensive commodities, face an imminent prospect of transitions away from those commodities. In the case of thermal coal, this transition will likely occur well before the resource itself is exhausted. This paper seeks to better understand the barriers to rehabilitated mine lands progressively transitioning to a post-mining land use on operational mine sites as perceived and experienced by experts in Australia. Given very little in the literature has canvassed the views of mine rehabilitation experts in this matter, an expert elicitation survey was conducted to better understand these perceived and experienced barriers. Specifically, the focus was to explore barriers external to the commercial decisions of the mining companies themselves. Survey participants showed strong alignment around potential barriers pertaining to uncertainty of closure acceptance criteria, residual liabilities and apportionment of liabilities impeding deployment of innovative non-mining land uses. While the research draws heavily on examples emanating from Australian experience, the insights gained have broad applicability and relevance for governments and industry across other jurisdictions facing progressive rehabilitation and mine transition challenges.
{"title":"Barriers to introducing non-mining land uses onto operational mines as perceived and experienced by experts in Australia","authors":"James Purtill , Vigya Sharma , Guy Boggs","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101841","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101841","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Every mining jurisdiction in Australia expects mined land to be progressively rehabilitated to achieve a safe, stable, non-polluting landform, capable of sustaining a post-mining land use. Resource communities, especially those extracting carbon-intensive commodities, face an imminent prospect of transitions away from those commodities. In the case of thermal coal, this transition will likely occur well before the resource itself is exhausted. This paper seeks to better understand the barriers to rehabilitated mine lands progressively transitioning to a post-mining land use on operational mine sites as perceived and experienced by experts in Australia. Given very little in the literature has canvassed the views of mine rehabilitation experts in this matter, an expert elicitation survey was conducted to better understand these perceived and experienced barriers. Specifically, the focus was to explore barriers external to the commercial decisions of the mining companies themselves. Survey participants showed strong alignment around potential barriers pertaining to uncertainty of closure acceptance criteria, residual liabilities and apportionment of liabilities impeding deployment of innovative non-mining land uses. While the research draws heavily on examples emanating from Australian experience, the insights gained have broad applicability and relevance for governments and industry across other jurisdictions facing progressive rehabilitation and mine transition challenges.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101841"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101846
Sayeed Mohammed , Cheryl Desha , Ashantha Goonetilleke
There is a global need to decarbonize energy systems and infrastructure to achieve carbon neutrality, also known as “net-zero” status, by 2050. For countries known as “hydrocarbon dependent rentier states” (HDRSs), the challenge is twofold: moving away from hydrocarbons as the main source of domestic energy supply and moving away from the extraction and processing of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) as the main contributor to national income. This paper draws on expert interviews and combines the multi-level perspective and political economy frameworks in examining the dynamics of sustainability transition in the rentier states. In the absence of documented precedents, this paper presents the results of interviews with experts in which the options for transitioning to a net-zero path are explored, focusing on a case study of Qatar. Multi-level perspective, rentier state, and resource curse theories were used as an analytical lens to assess how this knowledge can inform a transition agenda where hydrocarbons dominate current economic and socio-technical systems. This study identified eighteen factors that could have a significant influence on resistance or reversal of transition pathways in HDRS. The research found that landscape or exogenous factors play a major role in small, hydrocarbon-dependent economies because they are dependent on the export market and vulnerable to global commodity price cycles. Steady decline in demand, price volatility, cheaper alternative energy sources and ambitious net-zero plans are some of the main landscape (exogenous) factors that are likely to be influential in creating potential pressure on the regime for low carbon transition in rentier states. However, the results also reveal that the states resist major changes and hold on to the existing regime to avoid major distributional impact on their economy and society at large.
{"title":"Low carbon transition dynamics for hydrocarbon-dependent rentier states","authors":"Sayeed Mohammed , Cheryl Desha , Ashantha Goonetilleke","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101846","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101846","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>There is a global need to decarbonize energy systems and infrastructure to achieve carbon neutrality, also known as “net-zero” status, by 2050. For countries known as “hydrocarbon dependent rentier states” (HDRSs), the challenge is twofold: moving away from hydrocarbons as the main source of domestic energy supply and moving away from the extraction and processing of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) as the main contributor to national income. This paper draws on expert interviews and combines the multi-level perspective and political economy frameworks in examining the dynamics of sustainability transition in the rentier states. In the absence of documented precedents, this paper presents the results of interviews with experts in which the options for transitioning to a net-zero path are explored, focusing on a case study of Qatar. Multi-level perspective, rentier state, and resource curse theories were used as an analytical lens to assess how this knowledge can inform a transition agenda where hydrocarbons dominate current economic and socio-technical systems. This study identified eighteen factors that could have a significant influence on resistance or reversal of transition pathways in HDRS. The research found that landscape or exogenous factors play a major role in small, hydrocarbon-dependent economies because they are dependent on the export market and vulnerable to global commodity price cycles. Steady decline in demand, price volatility, cheaper alternative energy sources and ambitious net-zero plans are some of the main landscape (exogenous) factors that are likely to be influential in creating potential pressure on the regime for low carbon transition in rentier states. However, the results also reveal that the states resist major changes and hold on to the existing regime to avoid major distributional impact on their economy and society at large.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101846"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-05DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101848
Debra J. Davidson , Angeline Letourneau
Expectations for substantial escalation in mining activities around the globe revitalize concerns about the impacts of mining, and persistent challenges associated with anticipating and mediating those impacts. This is particularly so given that many mineral reserves are in remote locations that are ecologically and culturally sensitive. Northern Canada describes such a place, with a long history of mining, most of which entails disruptions to sensitive Arctic and subarctic landscapes, and incursions onto Indigenous lands. Today, these same lands are simultaneously highly exposed to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, which may exacerbate the impacts of industrial development. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in collaboration with the Tłı̨chǫ Nation of northern Canada to capture the different forms of enduring social impact due to mining in the region, their potential intersection with emerging impacts of climate change, and prospects for the future of this and other northern Indigenous communities whose lands intersect with mineral reserves.
{"title":"The social impacts of mining in northern Canada: Contemporary manifestations of an enduring challenge","authors":"Debra J. Davidson , Angeline Letourneau","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101848","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101848","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Expectations for substantial escalation in mining activities around the globe revitalize concerns about the impacts of mining, and persistent challenges associated with anticipating and mediating those impacts. This is particularly so given that many mineral reserves are in remote locations that are ecologically and culturally sensitive. Northern Canada describes such a place, with a long history of mining, most of which entails disruptions to sensitive Arctic and subarctic landscapes, and incursions onto Indigenous lands. Today, these same lands are simultaneously highly exposed to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, which may exacerbate the impacts of industrial development. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in collaboration with the Tłı̨chǫ Nation of northern Canada to capture the different forms of enduring social impact due to mining in the region, their potential intersection with emerging impacts of climate change, and prospects for the future of this and other northern Indigenous communities whose lands intersect with mineral reserves.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101848"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101839
Donald Kingsbury
This article makes the case for extractive transitions as an alternative or complementary framing of the means and consequences of existing proposals for decarbonization. Official energy transitions strategies in the Global North and Global South often promise a response to the climate crises accompanied by economic growth. According to this logic, new industries and infrastructure, electric vehicles, and battery manufacture have the ability to produce financial windfalls, new sources of employment, and revenues for development in both the Global North and South. Viewed from the territories in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile from which the raw materials for this new round of industrialization are sourced, however, the promises of decarbonization and development ring hollow. This article develops the concept extractive transitions in order to highlight the other side of decarbonization. In order to do so, it makes three key observations. First, that Energy Transitions are framed as development opportunities by policymakers. Second, that the lithium sector is following established extractivist patterns in which revenues are pursued through the rapid expansion of exports rather than capturing downstream production in related supply chains. Finally, development and extractivism have encountered hard limits in Latin America, which in turn engenders skeptical and critical reactions from peoples occupying territories marked for an intensification of extraction in the name of decarbonization.
{"title":"Extractive transitions: contested framings of decarbonization and lithium mining in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile","authors":"Donald Kingsbury","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101839","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101839","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article makes the case for extractive transitions as an alternative or complementary framing of the means and consequences of existing proposals for decarbonization. Official energy transitions strategies in the Global North and Global South often promise a response to the climate crises accompanied by economic growth. According to this logic, new industries and infrastructure, electric vehicles, and battery manufacture have the ability to produce financial windfalls, new sources of employment, and revenues for development in both the Global North and South. Viewed from the territories in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile from which the raw materials for this new round of industrialization are sourced, however, the promises of decarbonization and development ring hollow. This article develops the concept extractive transitions in order to highlight the other side of decarbonization. In order to do so, it makes three key observations. First, that Energy Transitions are framed as development opportunities by policymakers. Second, that the lithium sector is following established extractivist patterns in which revenues are pursued through the rapid expansion of exports rather than capturing downstream production in related supply chains. Finally, development and extractivism have encountered hard limits in Latin America, which in turn engenders skeptical and critical reactions from peoples occupying territories marked for an intensification of extraction in the name of decarbonization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101839"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145884013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101849
Chun YANG, Ibrahim Abatcha UMAR
Extensive studies have examined global production networks (GPNs) for lithium, with a focus on upstream activities in the “Lithium Triangle” (Bolivia, Chile and Argentina) and in Australia. However, the increasing importance of emerging regions in the Global South, particularly the African countries, has been overlooked under the geopolitical risks of the lithium GPN reconfiguration. Drawing on field investigations and in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025, this paper examines Chinese transnational corporations' (TNCs) investment in Nigeria’s lithium mining and processing activities since the early 2020s, particularly within the context of the escalating Sino-US trade war. Based on case studies in the Kaduna and Nasarawa regions of Nigeria, this study exemplifies how peripheral regions in sub-Saharan Africa have strategically coupled into the lithium GPN by leveraging geographical risks. The paper sheds light on emerging ‘China+2′ strategy engaged by Chinese TNCs in response to the heightened geopolitical uncertainty and supply chain fragmentation. This study contributes to the literature on strategic coupling by highlighting the changing dynamics of geographical risks in the reconfiguration of GPNs in extractive industries.
{"title":"Strategic coupling in global production networks under geopolitical risk: Chinese lithium investment in Nigeria","authors":"Chun YANG, Ibrahim Abatcha UMAR","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101849","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101849","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extensive studies have examined global production networks (GPNs) for lithium, with a focus on upstream activities in the “Lithium Triangle” (Bolivia, Chile and Argentina) and in Australia. However, the increasing importance of emerging regions in the Global South, particularly the African countries, has been overlooked under the geopolitical risks of the lithium GPN reconfiguration. Drawing on field investigations and in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025, this paper examines Chinese transnational corporations' (TNCs) investment in Nigeria’s lithium mining and processing activities since the early 2020s, particularly within the context of the escalating Sino-US trade war. Based on case studies in the Kaduna and Nasarawa regions of Nigeria, this study exemplifies how peripheral regions in sub-Saharan Africa have strategically coupled into the lithium GPN by leveraging geographical risks. The paper sheds light on emerging ‘China+2′ strategy engaged by Chinese TNCs in response to the heightened geopolitical uncertainty and supply chain fragmentation. This study contributes to the literature on strategic coupling by highlighting the changing dynamics of geographical risks in the reconfiguration of GPNs in extractive industries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101849"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-03DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101843
Nathan Edenhofer
Metal-mining extractivism is on the defensive in Honduras. Following the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya, all signs pointed towards an expansion of metal-mining: radical neoliberalization; authoritarian governance; mining policy reform; hundreds of new concessions; domestic and transnational capital interest; and violence with impunity against environmentalists. Despite this, no post-coup metal-mining projects were exporting by the end of 2024. Relying on 47 interviews conducted in Honduras, GIS analysis, and export data, I argue that the strategic relations between capital, the state, and territorial movements undermined capitalist hegemony around mining, thereby undermining stability for mining capital. Pro-mining interests could generate neither material compromises nor compelling discourses necessary to construct hegemony in the territories containing mining concessions. Instead, mining companies opted for force over consent-building strategies. Resistance movements filled the discursive gap, weaving anti-mining discourses into in-depth territorial organizing. The state, debilitated by neoliberal reforms and lacking sufficient autonomy from capital, could not impose hegemony-supporting compromises between companies and communities. As hegemony faltered, movements disrupted mining projects, generating investment risk that caused metal-mining stagnation. This research shows that organized, ordinary people are central to impeding extractivism; impunity does not equal powerlessness of resistance; and coercion can undermine, rather than support, capitalist and extractivist hegemony.
{"title":"Impeding metal-mining expansion in post-coup Honduras: Capital-state-resistance dynamics and the contradictions between force and hegemony","authors":"Nathan Edenhofer","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101843","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101843","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Metal-mining extractivism is on the defensive in Honduras. Following the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya, all signs pointed towards an expansion of metal-mining: radical neoliberalization; authoritarian governance; mining policy reform; hundreds of new concessions; domestic and transnational capital interest; and violence with impunity against environmentalists. Despite this, no post-coup metal-mining projects were exporting by the end of 2024. Relying on 47 interviews conducted in Honduras, GIS analysis, and export data, I argue that the strategic relations between capital, the state, and territorial movements undermined capitalist hegemony around mining, thereby undermining stability for mining capital. Pro-mining interests could generate neither material compromises nor compelling discourses necessary to construct hegemony in the territories containing mining concessions. Instead, mining companies opted for force over consent-building strategies. Resistance movements filled the discursive gap, weaving anti-mining discourses into in-depth territorial organizing. The state, debilitated by neoliberal reforms and lacking sufficient autonomy from capital, could not impose hegemony-supporting compromises between companies and communities. As hegemony faltered, movements disrupted mining projects, generating investment risk that caused metal-mining stagnation. This research shows that organized, ordinary people are central to impeding extractivism; impunity does not equal powerlessness of resistance; and coercion can undermine, rather than support, capitalist and extractivist hegemony.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101843"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-27DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2025.101845
Michael Hitch , George Barakos
The climate emergency has been reframed as a moral summons to mine. Across policy, finance, and corporate discourse, extraction now parades as ecological salvation rather than ecological debt. This paper argues that the critical-minerals agenda serves as a Trojan Horse within climate governance, smuggling extractivist logic beneath the rhetoric of decarbonization. Drawing on political ecology, post-extractivist, and degrowth traditions, we integrate a PESTLE–Force-Field analysis of ninety-five policy and industry texts (2019–2025) from Canada, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Chile. Findings reveal a moral economy of speed in which urgency, techno-sovereignty, and ESG finance transform acceleration into virtue and restraint into failure. Under this logic, decarbonization becomes accumulation by decarbonization—an intensification of material throughput disguised as responsibility. Authentic transition requires embedding ecological limits in law, institutionalizing Indigenous co-governance, and redirecting finance toward sufficiency rather than expansion. Decarbonization cannot be mined into existence; it must be governed into balance.
{"title":"Critical minerals as a Trojan Horse: The political ecology of green extractivism in climate governance","authors":"Michael Hitch , George Barakos","doi":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101845","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.exis.2025.101845","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The climate emergency has been reframed as a moral summons to mine. Across policy, finance, and corporate discourse, extraction now parades as ecological salvation rather than ecological debt. This paper argues that the critical-minerals agenda serves as a Trojan Horse within climate governance, smuggling extractivist logic beneath the rhetoric of decarbonization. Drawing on political ecology, post-extractivist, and degrowth traditions, we integrate a PESTLE–Force-Field analysis of ninety-five policy and industry texts (2019–2025) from Canada, the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Chile. Findings reveal a <em>moral economy of speed</em> in which urgency, techno-sovereignty, and ESG finance transform acceleration into virtue and restraint into failure. Under this logic, decarbonization becomes accumulation by decarbonization—an intensification of material throughput disguised as responsibility. Authentic transition requires embedding ecological limits in law, institutionalizing Indigenous co-governance, and redirecting finance toward sufficiency rather than expansion. Decarbonization cannot be mined into existence; it must be governed into balance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47848,"journal":{"name":"Extractive Industries and Society-An International Journal","volume":"26 ","pages":"Article 101845"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145840862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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