Ecologically Unequal Exchange, Transnational Mining, and Resistance: A Political Ecology Contribution to Green Criminolo
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Ecologically Unequal Exchange, Transnational Mining, and Resistance: A Political Ecology Contribution to Green Criminology Laura Bedford1 · Laura McGillivray2 · Reece Walters1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This article draws on discourses in political ecology and green criminology to critique the ways in which transnational mining is legitimated and advanced with significant impacts on natural environments and local communities in the Global South. It examines an ongoing case of environmental conflict related to Australian mining in South Africa and explores processes of ecologically unequal exchange. It identifies how the corporate tentacles of transnational mining corporations circumvent and subvert regulatory oversight to exploit people, land and natural resources—with devastating environmental and social impacts. Finally, it discusses the perils and prospects faced by affected communities, as well as localized movements of resistance and environmental activism when confronting state and corporate power.
Introduction Today, billions of dollars flow into conflict zones in Africa and beyond through the illegal exploitation of diamonds, gold, oil and other natural resources, resulting in immeasurable harm to environments and local communities. According to the World Atlas of Illicit Flows—compiled by INTERPOL, RHIPTO (a Norwegian UN-collaborating center) and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime—environmental crime associated with such activities has overtaken traditional drug trafficking, kidnapping and ransom activities that extremist groups have used to fund their activities (Nellemann et al. 2018). While environmental crime is now recognized widely and has received varying degrees of attention from international to local-level lawmakers and enforcers, in this article, we look beyond these strictly legal definitions of environmental crime. Instead, we align with the eco-global criminology perspective posited by White (2018: 123) that crimes against the environment are frequently not defined by law as crimes at all: “many ecologically * Laura Bedford [email protected] 1
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia
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School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia
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destructive practices are in fact quite legal, precisely because they are facilitated by nationstates as well as corporations and other powerful actors.” These are the crimes of the powerful (Rothe and Friedrichs 2018) and, as Passas (2005): 776) describes them, they are “lawful but awful.” In adopting this perspective, we consider the harmful practices of the powerful associated with ecologically unequal exchange and its attendant structural violence. According to Frey and colleagues (2019:1), the idea behind ecologically unequal exchange is that “structures of social and environmental inequa
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