Peasant mineral resource extractivism and the idea of scarcity

In the Post-Washington Consensus era, many poorer countries underwent structural reforms, or ‘adjustment programs’ as they came to be known. Collectively, these suites of new neoliberal economic policies created more market-oriented economies. Integral to this neoliberal shift is the view that natural resources, such as land, its mineral resources and water, are tradable commodities that are subject to market forces. Consequently, most states have-with varying eagerness-exposed their mineral resources to investments by local as well as foreign entrepreneurs, resulting in the exploitation of resources at unprecedented rates. This strategy of exploiting resources for quick economic growth-supposedly in pursuit of human development, or at least to benefit people living in resource-rich areas-is known as extractivism. One can describe the process as a commodities consensus because of its complete disregard for the dispossession of people, resources and territories, while simultaneously creating new forms of dependencies.