Extractivist violence and the COVID-19 conjuncture

Abstract

This article consists of a theoretical development of the concept of extractivist violence, which is proposed as useful for understanding a conjuncture that is not only characterised by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by an urgent climate crisis resulting from violent extractivism. Extractivist violence is defined as the combination of different forms of violence exerted upon territories and upon racialised, gendered peoples (their bodies and their cultures) resulting from, and with the purpose of, perpetuating the extractivist model. It is engrained in the zones of extraction, but its logic extends beyond it. Taking Argentina as a starting point of enquiry, the theoretical proposal is followed by discussion of a series of events and phenomena unfolding during the COVID-19 crisis, with the aim of demonstrating how the perspective of extractivist violence is useful for arriving at a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the COVID-19 conjuncture. The article concludes with a consideration of the ethics of care as a counterpart to extractivist violence, and of the ways that care has underpinned a series of responses to COVID-19.

Extractivism and the engendering of disasters: disaster risk creation in the era of the Anthropocene

“…Kelman (2020, p. 1) notes this suggests “deep questions” around why and how, as happened with Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) and Ebola previously, humanity seemingly has disturbed ecosystems to the point that microbes “jump” species, creating new hazards for human beings. Paula (2021) suggests the answer may lie with the prevailing extractivist logic that has seen a doubling of resource extraction in the last 25 years (McNeish and Shapiro, 2021, p. 4). Extractive logic underpins social dislocation and ecological destruction, and the intensification of extractive practice creates the conditions that facilitate the spread of zoonotic disease (Artiga-Purcell et al ., 2023).…”

Disaster Extractivism: Latin America’s Extractive Shock Therapy in the Age of COVID-19

“…. increasingly based on violence and destruction” (Serafini, 2021: 104). Extractive activities are not the sole cause of the pandemic, but the extractivist logic remains instrumental to its socio-natural development.…”

“…Viewing the pandemic as a socio-natural disaster imbued with political economic and discursive politics upsets framings of COVID-19 as a purely natural and external threat to our “normal,” “healthy” and heavily extractive social, political, and economic systems. Quite the opposite, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged from the extractive logic that underpins rampant land-use change, lightning-fast global commodity chains, social dislocation, and ecological destruction—precisely the conditions that put humans in contact with and facilitate the spread of zoonotic disease (Gandy, 2021; Serafini, 2021; Sultana, 2021). Consequently, disaster extractivism takes on a double meaning in this analysis, describing the entrenchment of extractivism that both follows and facilitates disaster.…”