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Previous research has established a link between oil production and armed conflict in low- and middle-income countries. Oil-related grievances are viewed as a key variable driving resentment and antistate attitudes. However, the off-the-shelf measures of existing studies (oil exports, oil revenues per capita, etc.) measure dependence and richness, not grievances among the population. This article contributes to filling this gap. Relying on an original opinion poll from the conflict-ridden Niger Delta, the analysis shows that both rebel-pursued, collective grievances (unfair oil revenue distribution) and individual grievances (livelihood destruction due to oil production) make people support antistate violence. These results lend micro-level evidence to the grievance mechanism linking oil and (support for) rebellion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently there have been increasing instances of the return of the state as the central agent of development in resource-rich nations globally. Characterised by both a rhetorical and substantive commitment to increasing control over national resource revenues, this so-called new/neo-extractivism has attracted a debate concerning the extent to which it offers a viable alternative to the imperatives of neoliberal resource extraction. Using two examples, this paper analyses the ways in which the Ghanaian and Ecuadorean states discursively imagine such structural transformations. It highlights the value in analysing the politics of language for strengthening studies of neo-extractivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years after independence the labour market of western Kazakhstan is strongly oriented towards the resource-extraction industry. The oil sector offers job opportunities not only in mining and exploration but also in connected services such as transport, security and food supply, and maintenance services. Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in the region, I argue that the resource-extraction industry provides a blessing for the working population in terms of relatively high salaries; however, it represents a curse in terms of labour conditions. This article highlights, through the example of Aktobe province, workers’ attitudes towards and their agency within the oil sector that influences migration choices. The research suggests that money earned in the oil sector can work as a catalyst for migration and urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For four decades,The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) has served as a principal arena for the formation and dissemination of cutting-edge research and theory. It is globally renowned as a key site for documenting and analyzing variegated trajectories of agrarian change across space and time. Over the years, authors have taken new angles as they reinvigorated classic questions and debates about agrarian transition, resource access and rural livelihoods. This introductory essay highlights the four classic themes represented in Volume 1 of the JPS anniversary collection: land and resource dispossession, the financialization of food and agriculture, vulnerability and marginalization, and the blurring of the rural-urban relations through hybrid livelihoods. Contributors show both how new iterations of long-evident processes continue to catch peasants and smallholders in the crosshairs of crises and how many manage to face these challenges, developing new sources and sites of livelihood production. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Asymmetric growth in foreign policy dynamics and power posture between China and India at the regional level is the new contour of current Asian politics. One vital aspect of it is the multilateral power politics or engagement through which rising powers connect and integrate with regional vis-à-vis global conditions in order to contend and compete with each other's strategic interests and primacy. This Asian rendezvous is part and parcel of the rhetoric of liberalist sentiments, which realistically do not work in favor of the developing countries' relationships. The history of the China–India bilateral discourse suggests that. In today's context, the increasing multilateral engagement between the two countries is a potential medium for denying space and holding an edge over each other's priority of acquiring assorted global resources, forming an Asian and a global identity, and notably in securing respective national strategic objectives. Current foreign policy contours of both countries are quite different from the previous order and politics. The boundary will continue to be the fundamental problem in their bilateral discourse, while the Asian discourse of Sino–Indian multilateral politics will be decided by their competition and power rivalry in resources and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of studying and working in the field of natural resource sociology.

Across Africa, national policies that established protected areas (PAs) typically limited local use of wildlife and other resources. Over time, these policies have raised tensions with rural communities and today threaten to undermine conservation goals. This article examines community-PA relationships at four important sites in Ethiopia—a country of rich tradition with an unusual colonial past. Using focus groups and household surveys, we found that despite local tensions, most respondents held positive views toward wildlife and nearby PAs. Factors influencing positive views included receiving PA benefits, good relations with PA staff, higher education levels, being older, having a large family, diversified income sources, owning fewer livestock, and fewer incidents of wildlife conflicts. In contrast, the devolved control of PAs from federal to regional levels has not influenced community-PA relations as intended. Our results suggest that relations could be improved through involving communities in co-management arrangements, honoring resource tenure and use rights, providing benefits, and implementing conservation education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In southern Africa, legislative changes that devolved wildlife management authority on private land to landowners and growth in the commercial value of wildlife resulted in a substantial increase in private land dedicated to wildlife. In addition, groups of landowners within the bounds of the Great Limpopo Conservation Area have incorporated their properties into private nature reserves, thereby expanding the management scale of common-pool wildlife resources. Secondary data and experience with the reserves form the basis of our exploration of the contribution of private landholdings to wildlife conservation and the extent to which three private nature reserves appear to exhibit characteristics that promote effective community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The combined area of private land with wildlife-based enterprises in South Africa is more than double that of formal protected areas, and the three private nature reserves exhibit, to varying degrees, characteristics that enhance CBNRM and coordinated decision making for wildlife conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state of the local environment shapes the well-being of millions of rural residents in developing nations. Still, we know little of these individuals' environmental perceptions. This study analyzes survey data collected in an impoverished, rural region in northeast South Africa, to understand the factors that shape concern with local environmental issues. We use the “post-materialist thesis” to explore the different explanations for environmental concern in less developed regions of the world, with results revealing the importance of both cultural and physical context. In particular, gendered interaction with natural resources shapes perceptions, as does the local setting. Both theoretical and policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual article, the authors explore the possibilities of another approach to examining the human dimensions of wildland fire. They argue that our understanding of this issue could be enhanced by considering a cultural studies construct known as the “circuit of culture.” This cross-disciplinary perspective provides increased analytic power by accounting for the meaningful role of 5 cultural processes in terms of their location and interrelation within social experience. The authors compare the circuit of culture approach with a body of recent literature focused on wildland fire. The authors make the case that this research has moved in a positive direction since wildland fire first ignited social scientific interest in the 1980s, but it is still missing key cultural processes. Ultimately, following the circuit allows us to make more nuanced statements about meaning, something much needed in the face of the wicked problem of wildland fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of the resource curse suggests that countries with large caches of natural resources often perform worse in terms of economic growth, social development, and good governance than other countries with fewer resources. The theory posits that countries depending on oil or other extractive industries for their livelihood are among the most economically troubled, socially unstable, authoritarian, and conflict-ridden in the world. This article explores whether the resource curse is occurring in relation to oil and gas production in Southeast Asia, where investments in oil and gas infrastructure are expected to increase significantly. The article begins by conceptualizing the resource curse before explaining the factors believed to cause it. It then proposes metrics that can be used to identify the presence of the resource curse before testing these metrics on the five Southeast Asian countries with the largest rates of oil and gas production and reserves - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand - from 1987 to 2007. The article compares the performance of these Southeast Asian countries with the five largest producers in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as Brazil, China, India, the Russian Federation, and South Africa. The article concludes that the resource curse is not occurring in any of these countries, and that the theory may be too simplistic and deterministic to fully explain why some countries appear to be 'cursed' with resources while others are 'blessed'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) is the official meeting of the International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR), and is the largest international gathering of researchers and practitioners interested in the application of social science to environmental and natural resource issues. While a primary goal of ISSRM and IASNR is the development and exchange of information, an important secondary goal is professional development, particularly as this applies to graduate students. To further this latter goal, a Student Forum was organized and conducted at the 13th ISSRM in Park City, UT. This article reports the findings of a survey of Student Forum participants conducted to evaluate the session. Data on graduate student participation and participants, importance-performance analysis of the programmatic components of the forum, and measures of social capital generated by the forum suggest that the Student Forum was successful and should be continued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing consensus that insurgent access to natural resource revenues prolongs armed conflicts and presents significant hurdles to peacekeeping missions. This article examines the effectiveness of resource-related conflict termination instruments, focusing on revenue sharing, economic sanction and military intervention. Observing the outcomes of these three instruments for 26 conflicts between 1989 and 2006, we suggest that military intervention and revenue sharing seem to have a better record of successful implementation than sanctions, but that sanctions and sharing agreements have a stronger correlation with durable peace than military interventions. We also note that the effectiveness of conflict termination initiatives seems to respond to the types of conflicts and resources involved, and discuss implications for mechanisms linking resources and conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discuses the environmental conflicts studying various scaling factors of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It interprets various scales on which these conflicts can be resolved. The acquiring of resource wealth empowering to violence and various other elements linked with the conflicts are discussed. The article also presents strategies on conflict management towards achieving peace.