‘Sacrifice zone’: The environment–territory–place of disposable lives

Souza, de; Lopes, Marcelo Barreto

doi:10.1093/cdj/bsaa042

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The Federal Government also exercises strict political control over ministries/institutions and parastatal agencies located in the political centre in Abuja. However, the physical distance (Abuja and the Niger Delta region is approximately 550 km apart) creates a political geography whereby the federal capital territory positions the Niger Delta region as a sacrifice zone to meet other national policy goals (de Souza 2021 ; Ogwu 2012 ; Unah and Iruoma 2021 ). As an interviewee noted: The government concentrates power in Abuja, very far away from where solutions need to be.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Government ministry and agency restructuring across electoral cycles every 4 years has created barriers to long-lasting policy commitments, leading to “somersault policies”. Also, the Federal Government’s strict political control over ministries/institutions and parastatal agencies allows the federal capital territory to position the Niger Delta region as a sacrifice zone (de Souza 2021 ; Ogwu 2012 ; Unah and Iruoma 2021 ) to meet other national policy as well as personal and partisan policy goals. These influences strongly shape the MLG structure and policy coherence, resulting in a lack of coordinated action and political will to end gas flaring.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A Multi-level Governance and Policy Coherence Analysis

2023

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The unnecessary flaring of natural gas impacts public and environmental health, contributes to climate change and wastes fuel resources. Though reducing flaring is an emergent global environmental governance priority, progress has been slow. We assess gas flaring policy in the critical case of Nigeria through multi-level governance (MLG) structure. Our analysis assesses policy coherence (leading to progress in reaching shared goals) and divergence (creating tension and undermining progress) amongst sectors and institutional structures across the supranational, federal, state and local government scales. A combined dataset of documents, stakeholder interviews and expert surveys is analysed using Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) and content analysis. We identify the principal actors involved, examine the extent of gas flaring awareness and policy coherence across multiple sectors/policy domains, and assess progress towards Nigeria’s national intended contribution and national policy on climate change mitigation. We find that policy coherence around gas flaring, including efforts towards climate change mitigation, has been slowed by political partisanship, poor governance, lack of regulatory compliance, and policy conflict between environmental protection and economic development priorities. Nigeria urgently requires inclusive involvement of stakeholder voices across multiple sectors and scales of local/regional government, the strengthening of federal institutions, a revaluation of economic aspirations through revenue diversification, and leadership that can temper the power of International Oil Companies (IOCs) to exploit the complexity of the MLG structure. These actions would help the government in improving environmental justice outcomes for flaring-affected communities.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A Multi-level Governance and Policy Coherence Analysis

2023

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“…“Sacrifice zones” echo the idea of necropolitics because these areas create conditions of risk that seem to relegate certain lives to the disposable. Communities that host dirty or destructive industries are made to live in marginal areas where quality of life is relatively low in terms of health, welfare, and the availability of viable livelihood alternatives (Cottle, 2013; de Souza, 2021). From these, the connections across labour, resources, environments, and economic activities can be traced via the power dynamics embedded in socioeconomic relations that drive systems of production and labour.…”

Section: Unpacking Hazardscapes Through Accumulation By Dispossessionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accumulation by dispossession and hazardscape production in post‐corporate gold mining in Itogon, Philippines

Ocampo

Schmitz

2022

Geographical Research

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This study investigates the experience of a gold mining community two decades after corporate mining activities ceased and were replaced by informal subcontract small‐scale mining in Itogon, Philippines. Drawing on David Harvey’s accumulation by dispossession and Daanish Mustafa’s hazardscape, we consider the lasting effects, from 1903, of dispossession upon the establishment of the first commercial mines in the Philippines as experienced by traditional miners in Itogon. Despite the closure of mining operations, mineral lands remain privately owned, resulting in the persistence of legal land dispossession among local small‐scale gold miners. Mining activities still continue as small‐scale miners are able to access abandoned mines through subcontract mining. Subcontract mining has changed the source of capital that funds mining activities from mining corporation to rent‐seeking small‐scale mining financiers, but the new economic relations still benefit from the capitalist logic of low natural resources and labour value. We argue that the production of hazardscapes is a consequence of accumulation by dispossession through (1) processes of expropriation of mineral lands and the consequent creation of free labour among local miners; (2) the externalisation environmental cost as an accumulation strategy that results in the production of socionatural hazards; and (3) exploitation of those who labour and who are made to work in precarious work environment while contributing to the production of hazardscapes.

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“…While the damage is regretted, sometimes compensated to varying degrees, and by some deeply mourned, a powerful ideological consensus around the necessity of 'progress' and 'growth' secures public consent to-or at least complicity with-these sacrifices. This is made easier because sacrifices have usually been required of those with the least voice in the decision-making process (Nixon 2011;de Souza 2021;Hecht 2012), and concealed where they cannot be contained in this way (Zhang 2019).…”

Section: Deep Time Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The History and Deep Time of Climate Crisis

Power

2022

Worldviews

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A question that is not widely asked, but perhaps should be, is: how responsible are historians for today’s threats to much of life on earth? What part has been played by western historical constructions of the human past, the sense of temporality and meaning on which it has been based, and the ethical imperatives it encodes? In what ways has the modern, professionalised discipline, with its roots in Judeo-Christian universalism and ideas of historical exceptionalism, together with European imperial, enlightenment, and nationalist projects, taken possession of deep time and used it to delegitimise other ways of thinking about humans and the planetary past? How can thinking with deep time help historians to undo westernised modernity’s tight grip on space and time, and craft approaches to the past that give urgently needed room to all life and non-life, relationships, and possibilities?

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‘Sacrifice zone’: The environment–territory–place of disposable lives

Cited by 26 publications

References 8 publications

Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A Multi-level Governance and Policy Coherence Analysis

Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A Multi-level Governance and Policy Coherence Analysis

Accumulation by dispossession and hazardscape production in post‐corporate gold mining in Itogon, Philippines

The History and Deep Time of Climate Crisis

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