Neo-Liberalism as Creative Destruction

Neoliberalization has swept across the world like a vast tidal wave of institutional reform and discursive adjustment, entailing much destruction, not only of prior institutional frameworks and powers, but also of divisions of labor, social relations, welfare provisions, technological mixes, ways of life, attachments to the land, habits of the heart, ways of thought, and the like. To turn the neoliberal rhetoric against itself, we may reasonably ask: in whose particular interests is it that the state take a neoliberal stance and in what ways have these particular interests used neoliberalism to benefit themselves rather than, as is claimed, everyone, everywhere? Neoliberalism has spawned a swath of oppositional movements. The more clearly oppositional movements recognize that their central objective must be to confront the class power that has been so effectively restored under neoliberalization, the more they will likely themselves cohere.     

Accumulating Minerals and Dispossessing Indigenous Australians: Native Title Recognition as Settler‐Colonialism

The changes in regulation of mineral development on Indigenous people's lands, wrought by the advent of native title in Australia, created an impression that the political economy of mining on Indigenous people's lands would be fundamentally transformed. In this paper we argue, in reality, a deeply seated settler‐colonial mentality endures in Australia within the institutions presiding over mineral governance, particularly in those States that are heavily dependent upon resource extraction. Focusing on the governance of mineral development in Queensland, Australia, we offer an analysis of the rationalities that inform the endurance of an inequitable architecture of extractive governance in that State. Our conceptual framework draws on a synthesis of the concepts of “accumulation by dispossession”, “settler colonialism”, and Indigenous critiques of the politics of recognition, to argue that liberal states remain deeply committed to the facilitation of mineral development on Indigenous people's lands in direct contravention to international norms.     

Settlers,Workers, and the Logic of Accumulation by Dispossession

This article offers a critique of the Wolfe-an model, which has become so dominant within contemporary Settler Colonial Studies (SCS). It focuses particularly on the central claim made by Patrick Wolfe, and others after him, that settler colonialism is categorically differentiated from other forms of colonialism by its drive to “eliminate the native”, instead of exploiting them. This paper builds on the literature that shows how settler colonies have used elimination as well as exploitation in their relations with indigenous peoples—even transitioning from one to the other. Instead, the paper argues that focusing on accumulation by dispossession allows for an analysis of the specificity of settler social relations to emerge. It highlights the specific ways in which settlers collectively expropriate indigenous peoples and struggle amongst different settler classes over the distribution of the colonial loot.     

Dispossession by Accumulation? Mining,Water and the Nature of Enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano

Abstract: This paper examines processes of primitive accumulation and livelihood dispossession on the Bolivian Altiplano. Through empirical examination of the social and environmental effects of mining waste, the paper demonstrates that indigenous campesino community members are experiencing livelihood dispossession by way of three interrelated forms of accumulation: accumulation of toxic sediments on agricultural fields; accumulation of water and water rights by mining firms; and accumulation of territory by mining operations. In the case under examination, full proletarianization is not taking place, and processes of dispossession are not a “fix” for an overaccumulation crisis. The paper argues for greater attention to the contingent role of nature's materiality in processes of dispossession and accumulation.     

Diamond Mining in Canada's Northwest Territories: A Colonial Continuity

Abstract: The Canadian diamond industry has been lauded as a new approach to resource extraction, one whose institutions are characterized by a greater attention to Indigenous rights and the environment. However, an institutional analysis obfuscates the terrain of unequal relations that is the context for the Canadian diamond boom; an analysis of the effectiveness of social and environmental policies in relation to the extraction of diamonds in the Canadian North suggests that there is an intent on the part of those instigating this extraction (that is, the Canadian state, Canadian capitalist interests and international capitalist interests) to protect the Northern environment and to provide economic benefits to Northern Indigenous communities. This piece argues, instead, that this assumption is erroneous and that the Northern mining industry is part of Canada's project of internal colonization of Indigenous communities, a project that has intensified and expanded in the neoliberal era.     

“Much in Blood and Money”: Necropolitical Ecology on the Margins of the Uganda Protectorate

Increasingly, political ecologists invoke the concept of “green grabbing” to refer to the ways in which processes of accumulation by dispossession articulate with various imperatives for environmental protection. This paper traces these contemporary processes to their roots in the colonial era, focusing on how dispossession in the name of environmental protection intersects with complex historical geographies of state formation and internal territorialisation. Drawing upon the case of Mount Elgon in Britain's Uganda Protectorate, in particular, we reconstruct the ways in which the interrelated “birth” of both conservation and transcontinental agrarian markets were intimately connected to the emergence and normalisation of the colonial state itself. In doing so, we propose the term necropolitical ecology as a framework to encompass the ways in which contemporary “green grabs” partially emerge from racialised modes of colonial appropriation, the violence of which often still lingers in agencies and institutions of environmental governance in the contemporary postcolony.     

Helping the Rich get Richer: A Re-assessment of the Income Distributional Trend in Hong Kong

Although many are under the impression that income inequality in Hong Kong has been continually on the rise, the picture presented by official statistics is mixed. This article suggests that official statistics, due to limitations in their design, have underestimated the impact of the top earners. Utilising taxation data, a continuous and strong growth in inequality can be identified when the distribution among taxpayers is considered, providing an alternative picture of inequality in Hong Kong. It is argued that the surge in income inequality is driven in part by the rich earning more rather than by more people becoming rich. The Hong Kong government, instead of adopting redistributive measures to alleviate the situation, has exacerbated inequality through policy choices that strongly favour the richest group. Although these actions might be explained in relation to the political influence wielded by the business sector and the upper class, the social implications of inequality cannot be neglected. Apart from a stronger demand for democracy, perceptions of income inequality and the pro-rich bias in the political system significantly affect people’s political views, as seen in the support for the recent Occupy Movement.     

毕达哥拉斯:从人到神的演变——“古史层累”现象的西方个案探究

顾颉刚创立的“古史层累说”理论具有普遍适用性,不仅适用于中国古史研究,也适用于其他地区古代史的研究。本文以“古史层累说”的理论为指导,分析毕达哥拉斯从人到神的演变过程以及导致这种现象产生的背后原因,进而通过这个具体个案的研究,来论证顾颉刚“古史层累说”理论所具有的普遍意义。     

Generation and accumulation of oil and condensates in the Wenchang A Sag, western Pearl River Mouth Basin, South China Sea

The Pearl River Mouth (PRM) Basin is one of four Cenozoic basins in the South China Sea, and the Wenchang A Sag is a secondary depression in the western part of the basin. Both the Wenchang and Enping formations contain good source rocks in the western PRM Basin; however, only the latter has been considered a likely source of the discovered oil and gas. New data from fluid inclusions and the analysis of oil–source rock correlations for the WC10-3 oil and gas pools indicate two stages of petroleum charging, the earlier originating from the Wenchang Formation and the later from the Enping Formation. Kinetics of petroleum generation and structural evolution modeling were employed to further investigate the mechanism of formation of the WC10-3 oil and gas pools. It was shown that the crucial condition for the formation of pools is the time of development of the structural trap. The Wenchang Formation source rocks generated oil from 25 to 14 Ma in the possible source area of the WC10-3 oil and gas pools in the Wenchang A Sag, so that only traps formed earlier than this period could capture oil sourced by the Wenchang Formation. The Enping Formation source rock experienced its oil window from 18 Ma to the present with the main stage of oil generation from 15 to 5 Ma. During this period structural traps in the sag continued to form until movements became weak, so that most pools in the Wenchang A Sag originated from the Enping Formation source rock. The likely dissipation of oil and gas from the earlier stage of charging should be taken into account in assessing the oil potential of the Wenchang A Sag.     

Black Belonging,White Belonging: Primitive Accumulation in South Africa's Private Nature Reserves

Evictions have been shown to be a mechanism of primitive accumulation in nature conservation. This paper adds an historical analysis to the discussion on primitive accumulation in conservation by exploring the seemingly innocuous mechanism of White belonging to land in South Africa's private nature reserves. Contemporary articulations of White belonging are replete with stories and images of White male “pioneers” from the colonial era who, upon arrival in “empty lands”, were able to create economies out of nothing. Such representations of history on private nature reserve websites and other promotional material invisibilise Black belonging and legitimise private conservation. By illuminating the inconsistencies in the empty lands narrative and the legacies of three championed conservation pioneers from the 19^th century, this paper argues that White belonging is a mechanism of primitive accumulation, while Black belonging continues to be expressed in various ways in contemporary South Africa.