Industrial dynamics on the commodity frontier

Managing time, space and form in mining, tree plantations and intensive aquaculture

Bibliographic Data

ID4464458
AuthorsDaniel Banoub (0000-0003-1925-0360, Memorial University of Newfoundland), Gavin Bridge (0000-0003-1145-4895, Durham University, corresponding author), Beatriz Bustos-Gallardo (0000-0003-4586-9458, University of Chile), Beatriz Bustos, Irmak Ertör (0000-0002-2868-8359, Bogaziçi University), Marien González‐hidalgo (0000-0003-4702-4109, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), Julie Ann De Los Reyes (0000-0002-8468-8855, Kyoto University)
Year2021
Volume4
Issue4
Pages1533-1559
Publication date2021-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/2514848620963362
OpenAlexW3094134127
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited87

Research in political ecology and agrarian political economy has shown how commodity frontiers are constituted through the appropriation and transformation of nature. This work identifies two broad processes of socio-metabolism associated with commodity frontiers: the spatial extension of nature appropriation, via expanding territorial claims to the control and use of natural resources and associated acts of dispossession (commodity-widening); and the intensification of appropriation at existing sites, through socio-technical innovation and the growing capitalisation of production (commodity-deepening). While sympathetic, we have reservations about reducing frontier metabolism to either one or the other of these processes. We argue for more grounded examinations of how non-human nature is actively reconstituted at commodity frontiers, attuned to the diverse and specific ways in which socio-ecological processes are harnessed to dynamics of accumulation. To achieve this, we compare strategies of appropriation in three sectors often associated with the commodity frontier: gold mining, tree plantations and intensive aquaculture. In doing so, we bring research on capitalism as an ecological regime into conversation with work on the industrial dynamics of 'nature-facing' sectors. By harnessing the analytical categories of time, space and form adopted by research on industrial dynamics, we (i) show how strategies of commodity-widening and commodity-deepening are shaped in significant ways by the biophysical characteristics of these sectors; and (ii) identify a third strategy, beyond commodity-widening and commodity-deepening, that involves the active reconstitution of socio-ecological systems - we term this 'commodity-transformation

Agrarian society · Agriculture · Appropriation · Business · Capitalism · Commodity · Commodity chain · Commodity market · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Financialization · Frontier · Geography · Market economy · Natural resource economics · Political science · Politics · Production (economics · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Mining and Resource Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Ecology