Social movements have been viewed as vehicles through which the concerns of poor and marginalised groups are given greater visibility within civil society, lauded for being the means to achieve local empowerment and citizen activism, and seen as essential in holding the state to account and...

Summary This special section brings together 4 of the 12 studies conducted within a research program analyzing the relationships among social mobilization, governance, and rural development in contemporary Latin America. The introduction gives an overview of the contemporary significance of...

Development is embedded in networks that extend across space and time. These networks—maintained, reworked, and given meaning through the practices of the actors who constitute them—bring together assemblages of institutions, knowledges, and commitments that make possible and shape the ways...

It can be argued that development geography has left few traces either on the broader canvas of development theory or on the thought and practices of social actors engaging with material processes of change typically framed within the language of development. This paper argues that this is...

In the search for alternatives to state-managed agricultural research and extension, there has been much interest in assessing the pros and cons of, and the mechanisms for, varying forms of private sector involvement. One experience of privatization that has received much attention has been that...

This paper addresses institutional and political relationships that govern the interactions between natural resource extraction, economy and society with a focus on the mining and hydrocarbon sectors. These relationships help define the implications of resource extraction for democracy and the...

Recent years have seen increasingly aggressive expansion of the extractive economy in the Andean- Amazonian region, as both hard-rock mining and hydrocarbon frontiers move into new territories and deepen their presence in old ones. In ways reminiscent of the film Avatar, this expansion drives...

Local governance arrangements often reflect culturally charged struggles for power as well as culturally motivated efforts to gain access to power. Yet current discussions around community-driven and decentralized development pay little attention to this nexus, at best reducing power to...

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on...</p>

The World Bank's recent concern for 'empowerment' grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more...