Extractivism beyond territory: Examining the socio-spatial relations of the natural gas industry in Peru and Bolivia

Abstract

The Latin American literature about 'extractivism' has shown the spatial contradictions of the development models based on the extensive and intensive appropriation of natural resources. The core spatial concept of such a literature has been the territory. From such a concept, the literature addresses the state, to examine the organization of the resource-dependent development model, and the local resistances to show the varieties of communitarian practices and local projects of resource governance. Whereas these concepts have highlighted the territorial dimension of the extractivismo, there are manifold socio-spatial processes that underpin the geographical assemblage of extractivismo that ask for a more dynamic a relational spatial examination. This paper progresses in such a direction by analyzing the socio-spatial dynamics in which hydrocarbon industry stands in Peru. More specifically, by researching the interactions between production networks and their territorial embeddedness, and the production of scalar regimes of natural gas rents within extractives states.