In this introduction to the book, Mining in Latin America: Critical Approaches to the New Extraction, I sketch the contours of the broad academic conversations taking place around the new extraction and lay out the key characteristics of the “new extraction.” I further lay out the rationale...

In the context of the current extractive boom in Latin America and beyond, transnational mining corporations are increasingly making use of a growing set of investment rights granted to companies operating in foreign countries. Mining companies take advantage of these rights by arbitration...

In what follows I draw from a variegated set of texts to explore and explain Canada's new concerted effort to protect and promote Canadian extractives abroad. I integrate Immanuel Wallerstein's concept of “protection networks” with Michael Klare's recent writing on resource scarcity and my...

Many developing economies have been receiving increasingly significant amounts of foreign direct investment in mining over the past two decades. As mining expands in these new mineral economies, this sector has become a significant source of social and political conflict. New mineral economies...

This U4 Issue discusses the corruption risks faced by mining companies in Guatemala, with a particular focus on the risks faced by small, “junior” mining companies primarily engaged in exploration. Several factors make such companies highly prone to engaging in corrupt behavior, especially...

Commodity chain analysis, derived from world-systems theory, is a useful heuristic for organizing thought and shaping research on global political economy. Commodity chain analysis narrows in on individual commodities and analyzes the organizational processes of production, consumption and...