Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resource Booms and the Geography of Oil Palm Expansion

Clark University, Worcester MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the recent expansion of large-scale oil palm projects to investigate how geographies of resource booms are produced and how different coalitions of interests affect the role of the state in environmental governance. The project addresses the struggles between "growth" and "counter" coalitions to promote or resist large-scale oil palm projects; the ways in which the material nature of oil palm shapes the expansion process; and the forms state interventions take to govern the expansion of oil palm. This research will contribute to the literature on resource booms by providing a policy relevant analysis of the social and environmental criteria required for the sound development of oil palm plantations. This study will also produce academic papers and pieces written for broader audiences that link this case to theoretically grounded policy debates in political ecology and development studies. The theoretical framework for this study draws on literature within political ecology that is concerned with the social dimensions of land transformation and with large scale land acquisitions and "land grabs". The project focuses on a case study of oil palm expansion in several sites of the Peruvian Amazon and utilizes principally qualitative methods that include open-ended semi-structured interviews, field observation in project areas, participant observation in technical coordination boards and spatial analysis, and a review of policy documents, legal frameworks and press reports related to oil palm investment. The sites for data collection involve different investors, are at different stages of project development, and three of them have reported conflicts while one has not. This diversity will allow the investigators to assess causal claims about how the geographies of resource booms are produced across different contexts.