Doctoral Dissertation Research: Property Rights Claims and Resource Extraction in Contested Territorial Contexts

The New School, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Supervised by Dr. Janet Roitman, Randi Irwin, a doctoral student from The New School for Social Research, will conduct research that explores strategies for property utilization in contested territories. The research explores the creation and implementation of deferred oil contracts, which function like financial derivatives since oil reserves, unlike many other resources, are able to generate economic value without its immediate extraction. The debate over resource extraction in the Western Sahara, an oil-rich area in territorial dispute, provides an entry point for exploring how various stakeholders have utilized international law in order to make future-based claims on property and legitimacy. Given that many of the world's untapped oil reserves exist in contested territorial spaces, the research is critical to understanding how energy security can be achieved in the twenty-first century. This project asks: How and in what forms have property and citizenship been configured inside of and beyond the contract? What is the relationship between infrastructure development, property, citizenship, and natural resources? Since 1975, Morocco and the potential Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic have been in a dispute over rights to the Western Sahara. Deferred contracts and other forms of delineating property and resources may also provide new ways to make claims to political legitimacy and define the limits of the population to be governed prior to the recognition of sovereignty. The research considers how property and citizenship might be configured inside of and beyond the contract, in order to produce a particular way of legitimating the transfer of land plots for future oil extraction and prepare for sovereignty. This multi-sited fieldwork will be conducted in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria, at the Saharawi oil and gas annual meeting in England, and the Saharawi Oil and Gas Office in Australia. This research will include: a) interviews with Polisario party officials who manage the oil contracts; b) interviews with elected members of the Saharawi parliament who hold the power to approve or reject how resources are utilized; c) trips to the Saharawi archaeological park; d) interviews with Saharawis who do not hold official positions, but are implicated in these various configurations of property; and e) archival research in the Saharawi government and oil offices. The project would engage future researchers and policymakers with the impact of deferred oil contracts in disputed territories, knowledge which is critical to establishing and maintaining energy security in the twenty-first century. The research also supports the training of a graduate student.