This article serves as an introduction to the special issue 'A Local to Global Perspective on Resource Governance and Conflict'. It advances the debate on natural resource governance and conflict by bringing together three different strands of literature with the aim of developing a local to global research perspective and framework for analysis. First, this article reviews and identifies research gaps in the literatures on (1) the resource curse, (2) environmental security and (3) the large-scale acquisition of land and natural resources. Second, it addresses the previously identified research gaps by developing a local to global research perspective and a corresponding analytical framework. The final section of this contribution summarises the key findings of the articles presented in the special issue and outlines their policy implications.

This article aims to draw attention to the role of the future in artisanal mining. It argues that in order to understand the dynamics of artisanal mining, research must understand miners' imaginaries of a better future which inform their economic strategies in the present. Drawing on Jens Beckert's (2016) concepts of fictional expectations and imagined futures, the article investigates projections of the future and strategies of futuremaking in the Sierra Leonean diamond market. If these expectations remain poorly understood, development policies will not be able to address the needs of mining communities.

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