Africa and the resource curse idea
As a concept and policy lesson, the “resource curse” idea gained popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s within academic, research, and policymaking departments of development organizations. Meanwhile, social scientists, including human geographers, anthropologists, and political ecologists, ha...
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| Format: | Book section |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Routledge
2019
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| Summary: | As a concept and policy lesson, the “resource curse” idea gained popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s within academic, research, and policymaking departments of development organizations. Meanwhile, social scientists, including human geographers, anthropologists, and political ecologists, have argued that the resource curse idea is inadequate, restraining, or inappropriate as a framework for understanding the complex and shifting dynamics of resource management and extraction. Three main critiques of the theory have emerged. The first critique disputes the factuality of the resource curse by countering the notion of a linear or causal relationship between the presence and extraction of resources and poor socio-economic performance. Epistemological critiques of the logic of the resource curse idea have revealed its colonialist and capitalistic genealogies. A second critique reveals the dualistic and deterministic emphasis of the resource curse idea. Third, the resource curse idea has been critiqued for failing to describe the complexities and multi-dimensionalities of life within the geographies of extraction. |
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