Resource Inequality

6 Key excerpts on "Resource Inequality"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Capital and Inequality in Rural Papua New Guinea

  • Bettina Beer, Tobias Schwoerer, Bettina Beer, Tobias Schwoerer(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • ANU Press

    (Publisher)

  Conclusion: Inequality, Institutions, Policy and Nuance As is obvious from the chapters in this volume, the disparities generated through the unequal distribution of revenues, and the interplay with group formation and local identity politics is a key driver of conflict around resource extraction projects. The chapters here productively shift the focus of the debate around inequality from an individualistic/societal one (the frame within which Picketty and Saez’s opening statement arises) to one constructed around a more Melanesian form of relationality. Not only is ‘relative inequality’ (or inequity, as Knauft notes) a key concept, but more fundamentally a relational view of the world, based on an understanding that foregrounds relationships—between people, land, materiality and the spirit world—forces us to rethink the processes and levers that frame and construct inequality. As Beer notes: 197 7. REFLECTING ON RESOURCE-DRIVEN INEQUALITIES different segments of local social fields can or cannot engage the encompassing global processes to different degrees and in different ways, depending on a host of social [and economic] factors. The upshot of such initial differential processes is frequently the production of significant social and economic demarcations, which itself is crucial to the generation of more entrenched social contracts in the medium and longer term. (Beer, this volume) The ethnographic focus on practices is able to be used so productively within this volume to interrogate broader discussions of inequality precisely because these relationships across multiple levels and contexts are so fine-grained, complex and diverse. Any worthwhile examination of inequality within the evolving global systems needs to pay heed to the nuance of cultural contexts, relationships and lived practices, not just national institutions and policy. References Bainton, N., 2010. The Lihir Destiny: Cultural Responses to Mining in Melanesia.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography

  • Matthew Himley, Elizabeth Havice, Gabriela Valdivia, Matthew Himley, Elizabeth Havice, Gabriela Valdivia(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  1

  Critical resource geography

  An introduction Gabriela Valdivia, Matthew Himley, and Elizabeth Havice

  Introduction

  This Handbook is about the state of knowledge of one of geography's most cherished objects of study: resources. Resources can encompass a broad range of things, including, but not limited to, physical entities that are regularly disentangled from their existing relations and incorporated as parts or fragments within other sets of relations, in order to fulfill a promise. Resources, for example, are often thought of as means to an end, instruments to realize a goal or state, such as a life free of suffering or a “higher” level of socioeconomic development. Think of hydrocarbons extracted from the underground and refined to generate energy, or guano harvested from island ecosystems to fertilize depleted soils, or tuna captured from the oceans to meet food market demands. But resources, and the promises that they are expected to fulfill, are not simple or straightforward. Resources require systems of “resource-making” (Kama 2020; Li 2014; Richardson and Weszkalnys 2014), each with its own infrastructures, logics, temporalities, and valuation systems. Removing something from its existing relations in order to incorporate it as a resource into a new set of relations requires thought and action, all based on architectures of valuation through which some things and relations are rationalized as more valuable than others. This, in turn, raises questions about who is making these value judgments, in what context these valuations make sense and become dominant, and how systems of resource-making affect different constituencies in varied and uneven ways.

  The systems through which resources are made and circulated have compounding effects, shaping the world and how people experience and know it. The idea for this Handbook emerged in the context of an expansion of “critical” resource-centered scholarship examining the relationship between resource systems and the uneven worlds they create (see, for example, Bakker and Bridge 2006; Bridge 2009; Furlong and Norman 2015; Huber 2018; Lawhon and Murphy 2012; Kama 2020; Robbins 2002). Broadly, this research coheres around three key elements: an approach that positions the resource itself as the analytical starting point; an emphasis on the interrelated materiality and spatiality of resources and resource systems; and a concern for unequal power relations, distributive outcomes, and the ethical dimensions of these systems. Thematically, the focus is often on the capitalist production, distribution, and consumption of “established” resources—that is, entities whose identities as resources are relatively well-consolidated (e.g., copper, oil, tuna)—as well as the emergence of new socio-spatial “frontiers” for these, as seen, for instance, in the march of hydrocarbon and mineral-mining operations offshore and into deeper waters. Scholars also examine how an increasing array of things-in-the-world are abstracted, monetized, and incorporated into social life as “novel” resources or in resource-like ways: things such as human tissues, wildlife, parasites, and ecosystem services. Across this body of scholarship, researchers are attentive to the contestations and crises—from climate change to species extinction to toxic contamination—that are generated by dominant (i.e., capitalist) modes of resource production, consumption, management, and disposal. And scholars are increasingly interested in resource futures (e.g., green transitions and degrowth) as well as worlds that exist (or might exist) without or against the notion of resources.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Social Inequality as a Global Challenge

  • Medani P. Bhandari, Shvindina Hanna(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • River Publishers

    (Publisher)

  1 Chapter 1 Social Inequality as a Global Challenge: Scenario, Impacts, and Consequences Medani P. Bhandari, PhD 1 1. Introduction “ Inequality—the state of not being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities—is a concept very much at the heart of social justice theories. However, it is prone to confusion in public debate as it tends to mean different things to different people. Some distinctions are com-mon though. Many authors distinguish “economic inequality”, mostly meaning “income inequality”, “monetary inequality” or, more broadly, inequality in “living conditions”. Others further distinguish a rights-based, legalistic approach to inequality—inequality of rights and asso-ciated obligations (e.g. when people are not equal before the law, or when people have unequal political power )” (United Nation 2018:1). Inequality is one of the major human to human divisive factor since the evolutionary history of human development and civilizations. Inequalities present in every sphere of social, political, and economical structure of com-munity, national and international level throughout social, economic, reli-gious, and political histories. The strata created by inequalities are grounded 1 Professor of Sustainability, Akamai University, Hilo, Hawaii, USA; Prof. of Innovation and Finance, Sumy State University, Ukraine. [email protected] 2 Social Inequality as a Global Challenge on innumerable factors—such as social, cultural, political, geographical, or due to environmental (anthropogenic or natural) catastrophe. Inequality can be seen as a communicable global disease. Inequalities can be understood in many forms, however, mostly known, and discussed forms are economic, social, political, cultural, and religious inequalities. As Stewart (2010) notes: “Economic inequalities include access to and ownership of financial, human, natural resource-based and social assets. They also include inequalities in income levels and employment opportunities.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Inequality

  A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender

  • Lisa A. Keister, Darby E. Southgate(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Other factors contribute indirectly to resources: People who grow up in a large family may complete less education and have fewer resources as 18 1 Inequality and Opportunities a result (Downey 1995). Many traits, such as race and ethnicity, interact with these other factors and the environment in ways that also contribute to resource access. Together, these processes shape a person’s access to financial resources, power, and prestige. Inequality over Time Inequality has been an important part of history in all parts of the world. Throughout most of history, resources have been concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of people. Table 1.2 shows the percentage of total wealth owned by the top one percent (i.e., the wealthiest) of households in the mid-1800s in six U.S. cities. This very small group of households owned as much as half of all assets at that time, leaving only half for the other 99 percent of households to share. Combined with the near absence of protection for workers, this created an environment in which the privileges of the wealthy were extremely consequential and often led to extremely dangerous working conditions for those who depended on the wealthy for employment. Although conditions such as these are still common in some parts of the world, significant changes occurred in many countries during the twentieth century that involved creating institutions to protect workers and improve working conditions. This was especially true in the United States, where efforts to ensure that workers received adequate compensation and benefits contributed to rising incomes and reductions in inequality in the two decades following World War II. As a result, household incomes increased significantly and a middle class emerged. During the 1950s, the gap between rich and poor closed and there was speculation that inequality would eventually disappear.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Sociology of Spatial Inequality

  • Linda M. Lobao, Gregory Hooks, Ann R. Tickamyer, Linda M. Lobao, Gregory Hooks, Ann R. Tickamyer(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  But these two concerns evolved rather sep- arately through independent subfields, bridged today in limited ways. Even when analysts attend to the intersection of inequality and space, differences in scale fragment our understanding. Literatures on spatial inequality are most developed at the scale of the city and nation-state or global system. In emphasizing their respective territories of focus, these literatures tend to rein- force differences among others. They sometimes leave the impression that different territories are distinct species of social settings, whose principles of understanding are unconnected. Further, certain geographic scales, such as those involving regional, rural, or other subnational territory, remain neglected or relegated to the backwaters of the discipline, while others are privileged through extensive exploration. The contributors to this volume believe that fragmentation in research on spatial inequality is detrimental, but we do not believe this fragmentation is inevitable. In an era of globalization and regional reconfiguration, it is important to self-consciously situate social processes in spatial context. This volume is directed to understanding how social inequality is influenced by space, especially at and across spatial scales and in places bypassed by much conventional literature. LINDA M. LOBAO, GREGORY HOOKS, ANN R. TICKAMYER 2 Sociology’s interest in inequality, the differential allocation of valued resources across social groups, traditionally focuses on class, race, gender, and other forms of social stratification. The discipline’s core grounding in stratifi- cation sets it apart from other social sciences, such as economics, political sci- ence, and geography. However, until the 1980s, sociologists studying inequal- ity in advanced nations neglected and, to some degree, resisted consideration of geographic territory as a base of stratification (Soja 1989).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa

  • Alexandre Marc, Neelam Verjee, Stephen Mogaka(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • World Bank

    (Publisher)

  77 Chapter 4 Redressing Regional Imbalances and Distributing Mineral Resource Revenues More Equitably Inequalities between regions and the exclusion of parts of the population are recurring drivers of conflict in West Africa. Both phenomena reflect deep-rooted factors. Awareness of these imbalances and deliberate policies to mitigate their negative effects are the most effective ways to decrease their salience as drivers of conflict. The unequal distribution of revenues from mineral resources also contrib-utes to fragility across the subregion. Greater awareness of the perceptions or reality of inequitable distribution and efforts to offset the problem and enhance transparency and governance are critical to managing the risk of instability. The Time Bomb of Regional Imbalances Wide inequalities between regions and the exclusion and marginalization of segments of the population have triggered both large-scale and low-level violence and conflict in West Africa in recent decades. Perceptions of inequality have increased the tendency to rebel against the central government, as witnessed in the 2012 Tuareg-led rebellion against the seat of power in Bamako in Mali, the 2007 rebellion in Niger, the much less violent Casamance uprising in Senegal that has been ongoing since 1982, and land clashes between the Nanumbas and the Konkombas in northern Ghana. The rise of violent ethno-nationalism in Côte d’Ivoire also reflected perceptions of inequality and exclusion (Olonisakin 2008). Horizontal Inequalities and the Risk of Conflict The existence of severe inequalities between culturally formed groups are known as horizontal inequalities . Where cultural differences coincide and align with economic and political differences between groups and are not addressed 78 THE CHALLENGE OF STABILITY AND SECURITY IN WEST AFRICA or counterbalanced by political accommodation, they can significantly raise the risk of conflict (Stewart 2010).

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book