Extracting Development: Contested Resource Frontiers in Mainland Southeast Asia

Resource extraction is currently shaping Southeast Asian landscapes and people's lives to an unprecedented degree. This volume explores old and new resource frontiers, their effect on local economies and social relations, and questions of (contested) resource control and governance. Case studies from Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia, illustrate the predicament of globalized extractivism processes in the region, particularly (but not only) with regard to China's rising geopolitical and -economic influence, most prominently expressed by the Belt and Road Initiative.

Discussing transboundary investments in land and water reserves, and localized commodification processes of agrarian resources, this volume not only investigates the competing actors and discourses of resource extraction in Southeast Asia. What is more, the different case studies shed light on the contingent outcomes on the ground of transregional economic dynamics and related socio-ecological transformations. Combining macro perspectives with fine-grained micro-scale studies, this volume offers a multi-faceted picture of extractivism in contemporary Southeast Asia.

Oliver Tappe is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Heidelberg (Germany), and associated fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

Simon Rowedder is Assistant Professor at the Chair of Development Politics, University of Passau, and affiliate member of the Max Weber Foundation Research Group on Borders, Mobility and New Infrastructures at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.