Marijnen, E. and Verweijen, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-4204-1172 (2020) Pluralising political forests : unpacking “the state” by tracing Virunga's charcoal chain. Antipode, 52 (4). pp. 996-1017. ISSN 0066-4812
Abstract
Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of “the state” to better capture “the political” in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of “stateness”, it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio‐spatial relations that produce political forests. Thus, we draw on the notions of territory, place, scale and network (TPSN) to examine how “stateness” in Virunga has transformed under the particularisation, transnationalisation, and regionalisation of authority. This approach allows us to show how these processes do not only stem from neoliberalisation, but are also driven by, inter alia, regional warfare and non‐state militarisation. The resulting complexity of the regulatory landscape turns Virunga into a space marked by a plurality of partly overlapping and partly conflicting political forests.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Antipode. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | political forests; natural resources; TPSN framework; the state; neoliberalisation; Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 07 Feb 2020 11:24 |
Last Modified: | 08 Dec 2021 14:31 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/anti.12492 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156583 |