Extractivism: A Review Essay

• Date: 01 September 2018
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17741292
• Author: Bret Gustafson
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 222, Vol. 45 No. 5, September 2018, 222–228

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17741292

© 2017 Latin American Perspectives

222

Book Review

Extractivism

A Review Essay

by

Bret Gustafson

Daniel Lederman and William F. Malone (eds.) Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor

Destiny. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.

Håvard Haarstad (ed.) New Political Spaces in Latin American Resource Governance. New

York: Palgrave, 2012.

Fabiana Li Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru. Durham,

NC: Duke University Press, 2015.

Jody Pavilack Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the

Popular Front to the Cold War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,

2011.

Mineral, oil, and gas prices turned upward in 2003, beginning the latest boom in

Latin American extractive industries. The boom was intense, with high mineral-

dependence in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia and high gas- and oil-dependence in Ecuador

and Bolivia. By 2014 its speculative origins and the resulting easing of demand in

consuming countries had caused something of a retreat (Zibechi, 2016). Even so, there

is no foreseeable end to the predominance of extractivism in shaping Latin American

political economy and society.

The convergence with the extractive boom of a resurgent left spurred a boom in

academic production. We now know that despite the leanings of leftist governments,

extractive industries exert their own force, somewhat contained by the repositioning of

the state and the use of rents for social welfare. Progressive regimes did more to reduce

poverty. However, because of the material form of extractive industries and their imbri-

cation in transnational legal and economic webs, dependence inevitably produces con-

flicts between state sovereignty, popular demands, and extractive capital. Left or right,

governments defend the idea that one or another resource is the key to progress. There

has been little transformation of the industries in the form of worker ownership, the

promotion of small-scale operations, radical oversight, or detachment from global

finance capital. The politics of redistribution has been demand-oriented rather than

structural, and therefore even in progressive regimes redistribution has fomented a

politics of consumption rather than economic diversification (Zibechi, 2016). An over-

view of recent research sheds light on export dependence and possibilities for envision-

ing postextractivist political economies.

It may seem strange to review a ten-year-old World Bank tract, but the Bank contin-

ues to be a major player, offering loans to expand these industries and shaping policy

debates through claims to expertise.1 Once deployed, as in Lederman and Malone’s

Bret Gustafson is a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.

741292LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X17741292Latin American PerspectivesGustafson / Book Review

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