Accumulation by dispossession and hazardscape production in post-corporate gold mining in Itogon,Philippines

This study investigates the experience of a gold mining community two decades after corporate mining activities ceased and were replaced by informal subcontract small-scale mining in Itogon, Philippines. Drawing on David Harvey’s accumulation by dispossession and Daanish Mustafa’s hazardscape, we consider the lasting effects, from 1903, of dispossession upon the establishment of the first commercial mines in the Philippines as experienced by traditional miners in Itogon. Despite the closure of mining operations, mineral lands remain privately owned, resulting in the persistence of legal land dispossession among local small-scale gold miners. Mining activities still continue as small-scale miners are able to access abandoned mines through subcontract mining. Subcontract mining has changed the source of capital that funds mining activities from mining corporation to rent-seeking small-scale mining financiers, but the new economic relations still benefit from the capitalist logic of low natural resources and labour value. We argue that the production of hazardscapes is a consequence of accumulation by dispossession through (1) processes of expropriation of mineral lands and the consequent creation of free labour among local miners; (2) the externalisation environmental cost as an accumulation strategy that results in the production of socionatural hazards; and (3) exploitation of those who labour and who are made to work in precarious work environment while contributing to the production of hazardscapes.     

Copra World: Coconuts,Plantations and Cooperatives in German Samoa

ABSTRACT

Since the mid-19th century, the copra trade has created challenges and opportunities for Pacific Islanders, including Samoans. In the wake of formal annexation in 1900, German colonial officials tried repeatedly to force Samoans to work on foreign plantations for wages. In this article, I argue that Samoans resisted these demands in two major ways. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority of Samoans continued subsistence agriculture that offered greater control over their lives. On the other hand, Samoans selectively adapted to new economic circumstances. Occasionally, Samoans engaged in wage labour on Euro-American plantations to earn the cash needed for imported goods, government taxes and church donations. To circumvent the monopolistic practices of Euro-American traders, Samoans also founded copra cooperatives. These ultimately folded under coercion, but not without creating a crucial legacy for future anti-colonial resistance. In Samoa’s world of copra, sweetness and colonial power were tightly bound together.     

DRS. MUTH AND MILLS MEET DR. TIEBOUT: INTEGRATING LOCATION‐SPECIFIC AMENITIES INTO MULTI‐COMMUNITY EQUILIBRIUM MODELS*

ABSTRACT We consider the problem of integrating spatial amenities into locational equilibrium models with multiple jurisdictions. We provide sufficient conditions under which models that assume a single housing price in each community continue to apply in the presence of location‐specific amenities that vary both within and across communities. If these conditions are satisfied, the models, estimation methods, and results in Epple and Sieg (1999) are valid in the presence of (potentially unobserved) location‐specific amenities. We also show how to construct sufficient statistics that capture location specific spatial heterogeneity. We apply these techniques using data from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. We find that these amenity measures capture proximity to important local employment centers as well as heterogeneity in school quality within a given school district.     

Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights:

I would hope that the nations of the world might say that we had built a lasting peace, based not on weapons of war but on international policies which reflect our own most precious values. These are not just my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our nation's continuing moral strength and our belief in an undiminished, ever-expanding American dream. ¹
President Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address, 20 January 20, 1977     

Entwicklungspolitik als globale Struktur- und Friedenspolitik

Globale Probleme gewinnen an Bedeutung. Die Risiken der Globalisierung müssen eingedämmt, ihre Chancen für die Bewältigung der globalen sozialen und ökologischen Zukunftsaufgaben genutzt werden. In den letzten Jahren wurden vor allem mit der Millenniumserklärung und dem sogenannte Monterrey-Konsens Fortschritte hin zu einem internationalen Konsens über Entwicklungsfragen gemacht, der Weg hin zu einer globalen Partnerschaft steht somit offen. Die Ereignisse des 11. September 2001 haben die Entschlossenheit gestärkt, Armut zu bekämpfen und der Ausgrenzung großer Teile der Weltbevölkerung von den Chancen der Globalisierung entgegenzuwirken. Die deutsche Entwicklungspolitik als globale Struktur- und Friedenspolitik hat dabei wachsende Bedeutung erfahren. Sie agiert auf drei Ebenen: Auf der internationalen Ebene sucht sie globale entwicklungsförderliche Rahmenbedingungen zu setzen; auf der Ebene der einzelnen Kooperationsländer geht es um die bilaterale, europäische und multilaterale Zusammenarbeit vor Ort. Auf deutscher Ebene schließlich nimmt sie beispielsweise politische Querschnittsaufgaben in den Bereichen Außen-, Handels-, Finanz-, Umwelt- und Agrarpolitik wahr. Das vielschichtige Einwirken und Stärken von Reformkräften wird am Beispiel der Unterstützung der neuen politischen Dynamik in Afrika verdeutlicht. Hinsichtlich multilateraler Kooperation reichen die bewährten Dialog- und Konsultationssysteme nicht aus, die weltweit anstehenden Umwelt- und Entwicklungsprobleme zu bewältigen. Neue, netzwerkartige Governance-Formen, die die traditionellen Systeme und Verfahren flankieren und ergänzen sollen, werden zurzeit erprobt und liefern ermutigende Resultate.