Muriel Cote - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Muriel Cote

Land, Sep 29, 2020

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development object... more Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development objectives and were introduced in the year 2000. In some cases, they have connected collectors of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) nuts with certified organic world markets, which can be understood as a 'market-based' approach to conservation. This paper examines how the benefits of this approach are distributed and argues that shea land formalization is crucial to this process. It makes this argument by drawing on interviews within two communities bordering Mole National Park. One community accepted to engage with, and benefitted from this approach, while the other did not. The paper analyzes narratives from different actors involved regarding why and how the market-based approach was accepted or rejected. It shows that, contrary to the neoliberal principles that underlie market-based conservation, a utility maximization rationale did not predominantly influence the (non-)engagement with this conservation approach. Instead, it was the history of land relations between communities and the state that influenced the decisions of the communities. We highlight the role of traditional authorities and NGOs brokering this process and unpack who in the communities profited and who was left out from benefits from this market-based conservation initiative.

Gender Place and Culture, Jan 25, 2022

Geographica Helvetica, May 3, 2018

This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso c... more This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso called Chantier d'Aménagement Forestier (CAF), which focuses on the participatory sustainable production of fuelwood and is widely supported by international donors despite evidence of its shortcomings. We analyse the surprising persistence of the CAF model as a case of the territorialisation of state power through the reproduction of "political forests"-drawing on the work of Peluso and Vandergeest (2001, 2011). Analysing some the shortcomings and incoherencies of the model, we bring to light the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of the CAF as a "political forest". We show that informal regulatory arrangements have emerged between state and non-state actors, namely merchants and customary authorities, over the production of fuelwood. We call these arrangements "fuelwood territorialities" because they have contributed to keeping the CAF's resource model unquestioned. With fuelwood territorialities, we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of "political forests", that is, the process of state territorialisation through forest governance. This analysis helps clarify how certain areas, such as the CAFs, keep being officially represented as "forest" even though they are dominated by a patchwork of fields, fallows, and savannahs and do not have the ecological characteristics of one.

Commercial interest in land has been increasing in recent years. While the trend is global, Afric... more Commercial interest in land has been increasing in recent years. While the trend is global, Africa has been centre stage to this new wave of land acquisitions. Agricultural investments can contribute to economic development and poverty reduction. But evidence suggests that many investments have failed to live up to expectations. In many cases, the deals have left villagers worse off than they would have been without the investment. Many deals are happening in developing countries where food security challenges are acute, and land tenure systems insecure. There is a growing body of evidence on the scale, geography, drivers, features and socioeconomic outcomes of large-scale land acquisitions. There is also broad agreement that improving accountability is critical in ensuring that investment processes respond to local aspirations. But few studies have specifically explored constraints and opportunities in the accountability of public authorities involved with large-scale land acquisitions. Do legal frameworks provide effective avenues for people to have their voices heard? What strategies are villagers using to respond to large-scale land acquisitions-and what difference do these strategies make? This report, commissioned by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and prepared by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), is a step towards answering these questions. The report takes stock of evidence about opportunities and challenges affecting the accountability of public authorities in large-scale land acquisitions, and about the role of legal empowerment as a citizen-driven pathway to greater accountability. The report builds on, and contributes to, a decade's worth of research that IDRC has supported on access to land rights globally, especially for women, and IIED's research on the global land rush and analysis generated through its Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment initiative. We hope that others might find this report useful in their own efforts to ensure accountability along pathways to sustainable development in a rapidly changing world.

Gates Open Res, Mar 1, 2019

Burkina Faso is currently experiencing a dramatic gold mining boom. it has been fuelled by a hike... more Burkina Faso is currently experiencing a dramatic gold mining boom. it has been fuelled by a hike in global gold prices and by government reforms aimed to attract Foreign direct investment in the sector. gold mining has enormous potential to support development that benefits the poor. Six industrial mines have been opened since 2008, and seven others are projected. at the same time, small-scale artisanal mining has rapidly expanded and generated a unique increase in wealth for rural households.

Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa (CODESRIA) eBooks, 2015

Political Geography, Nov 1, 2021

Geographica Helvetica, Oct 9, 2018

Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging... more Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging trend towards a decrease in deforestation rates, but it also points out that since 1990 total forest loss corresponds to an area the size of South Africa. Efforts to curtail deforestation require reliable assessments, yet current definitions for what a forest exactly is differ significantly across countries, institutions and epistemic communities. Those differences have implications for forest management efforts: they entail different understandings about where exactly a forest starts and ends, and therefore also engender misunderstandings about where a forest should start and end, and about how forests should be managed. This special issue brings together different perspectives from practitioners and academic disciplines-including linguistics, geographic information science and human geography-around the problem of understanding and characterizing forest. By bringing together different disciplinary viewpoints, we hope to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary efforts to analyse forest change. In this introduction, we propose that interrogating the relationship between forest definitions, boundaries and ways of valuing forests constitutes a productive way to critically conceptualize the trouble that forest is in.

Dialogues in human geography, Jun 26, 2019

To me that what Simon and Hayek have in common is a deep epistemological connection about the abi... more To me that what Simon and Hayek have in common is a deep epistemological connection about the ability to understand and control social complexity and how they think about decision-making. For Hayek this was clear in his debate over socialist calculation and what planning was doomed. For Simon it is wrapped up with boundedness and design. But let's also recall that Hayek himself thought in design terms, through the law, and forms of constitutionalism (see Quinn Slobodian's magnificent book Globalists). Which is to say that the relation between the two men and resiliency is a very particular type of contingency: a deep isomorphism, an elective affinity, a profound family resemblance. Nobody says Haykeian thought necessitated the emergence of resilience, but a true genealogical account would offer up a much more robust understanding of what is actually contingent about their relation. And it would suggest perhaps that the potentiality and transgressive alternatives which Grove so assiduously, even desperately searches for, might be quite chimerical.

Revue internationale des études du développement

Land, 2020

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development object... more Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development objectives and were introduced in the year 2000. In some cases, they have connected collectors of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) nuts with certified organic world markets, which can be understood as a ‘market-based’ approach to conservation. This paper examines how the benefits of this approach are distributed and argues that shea land formalization is crucial to this process. It makes this argument by drawing on interviews within two communities bordering Mole National Park. One community accepted to engage with, and benefitted from this approach, while the other did not. The paper analyzes narratives from different actors involved regarding why and how the market-based approach was accepted or rejected. It shows that, contrary to the neoliberal principles that underlie market-based conservation, a utility maximization rationale did not predominantly influence the (non-)engagement with this conse...

Geographica Helvetica, 2018

Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging... more Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging trend towards a decrease in deforestation rates, but it also points out that since 1990 total forest loss corresponds to an area the size of South Africa. Efforts to curtail deforestation require reliable assessments, yet current definitions for what a forest exactly is differ significantly across countries, institutions and epistemic communities. Those differences have implications for forest management efforts: they entail different understandings about where exactly a forest starts and ends, and therefore also engender misunderstandings about where a forest should start and end, and about how forests should be managed. This special issue brings together different perspectives from practitioners and academic disciplines-including linguistics, geographic information science and human geography-around the problem of understanding and characterizing forest. By bringing together different disciplinary viewpoints, we hope to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary efforts to analyse forest change. In this introduction, we propose that interrogating the relationship between forest definitions, boundaries and ways of valuing forests constitutes a productive way to critically conceptualize the trouble that forest is in.

Geoforum, 2019

The paper examines how the "politics of belonging" that is expressed through claims of autochthon... more The paper examines how the "politics of belonging" that is expressed through claims of autochthony, relates to citizenship. Claims of autochthony, or claims to have settled a given place first, have become increasingly common in Africa, but they clash with efforts to introduce notions of national citizenship under the democratization and decentralization reforms that have been adopted across the continent in the last three decades. This paper analyses this tension through the empirical case of autochthony claims that emerged in the context of the creation of a "municipal forest" under the forest decentralization reform in Burkina Faso, which draws on community-based governance. It argues that in this case, autochthony is a claim for the rights to have rights, for citizenship, that takes shape within a wider politics of framing what "the community" is, and what it is good for on the ground. It draws on the work of Tania Li's work on indigeneity to illuminate the role of some of the contradictions underlying this framingnamely the lack of actual devolution and the reification of "the customary"that help understand why autochthony becomes a powerful positioning to claim the right to have rights. So, while autochthony first appears as a breakdown of (national) community, because it clashes with the juridico-legal ideal of citizenship, if we look at the politics of decentralizing forest management in practice, it rather seems to be an integral part of claiming the rights to have rights within a globalised "community-based" form of rule.

Geographica Helvetica, 2018

This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso c... more This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso called Chantier d'Aménagement Forestier (CAF), which focuses on the participatory sustainable production of fuelwood and is widely supported by international donors despite evidence of its shortcomings. We analyse the surprising persistence of the CAF model as a case of the territorialisation of state power through the reproduction of "political forests"-drawing on the work of Peluso and Vandergeest (2001, 2011). Analysing some the shortcomings and incoherencies of the model, we bring to light the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of the CAF as a "political forest". We show that informal regulatory arrangements have emerged between state and non-state actors, namely merchants and customary authorities, over the production of fuelwood. We call these arrangements "fuelwood territorialities" because they have contributed to keeping the CAF's resource model unquestioned. With fuelwood territorialities, we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of "political forests", that is, the process of state territorialisation through forest governance. This analysis helps clarify how certain areas, such as the CAFs, keep being officially represented as "forest" even though they are dominated by a patchwork of fields, fallows, and savannahs and do not have the ecological characteristics of one.

World Development, 2016

This paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush. The liberalizati... more This paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush. The liberalization of the gold mining sector has given way to complex forms of regulation where non-state and illegal mining entrepreneurs compete in governing mining extraction. Taking the case of gold mining in Burkina Faso, this paper analyses the conditions and dynamics under which such complex regulation takes place. We draw on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Northern Burkina Faso, in particular the Burkinabè mining sector. We argue that enclave economies in the gold mining sector are co-produced by state and market regulation through a ''plurification" of regulatory authority. This ''plurification" is the effect of competition among different frontier entrepreneurs, who seek to broker regulatory authority in mining concession sites. We show that concession sites are not discrete extractive enclaves, but are better understood as indiscrete sites that are entangled in local politics and social relations. Rather than thinning social relations, as is often claimed, we observe that enclave economies thicken politics around concessionary regimes, where governmental bodies re-emerge as an arbitrating regulatory force. These findings problematize policy prescriptions to formalize the gold mining sector and draw attention to the role of the state in re/producing frontier entrepreneurs with unequal political rights to claiming concessions.

Frontiers in Human Dynamics

A buoyant debate has grown in political ecology and agrarian studies around the concept of extrac... more A buoyant debate has grown in political ecology and agrarian studies around the concept of extractivism. It shines a light on forms of human and non-human depletion that fuel contemporary capitalism. Within this debate however, artisan mining has been hard to fit in. Artisan mining is a form of small scale mineral extraction that occupies around 45 million people around the world, and sustains the life of many more, especially in the Global South. Much research has looked at this expanding form of livelihood, particularly through the prism of its persistent informality, its labor organization, and its challenges to environmental and labor rights. However, it has not been well-theorized in relations to extractivism, sitting uncomfortably with dominant categories such as “the community”, “the company”, and “social movements” in political ecology analyses. The paper maps out entry points to studying the significance of artisan mining within dynamics of extractive capitalism by bringing...

i Lay summary ii Acknowledgment iii Declaration of own work iv Abbreviations v List of figures vi... more i Lay summary ii Acknowledgment iii Declaration of own work iv Abbreviations v List of figures vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 BURKINA FASO AS A CASE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY 5 NATURAL RESOURCES AS A LENS: COMPETING INSTITUTIONS OF POWER IN BURKINA FASO 8 INSTITUTIONS OF POWER OVER GOLD RESOURCES 9 INSTITUTIONS OF POWER OVER WOODFUEL RESOURCES 11 COMPETING CLAIMS: THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY 12 THE CASE OF SÉGUÉNÉGA 14 LAYOUT OF THE THESIS 18 CHAPTER 2. DECENTRALISATION AND NATURAL RESOURCE PRODUCTION 25 BEYOND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: FROM GOVERNANCE TO GOVERNMENTALITY 27 WHOSE GOVERNMENTAL RATIONALITY? A DIVIDED POLITICAL ECONOMIC SCHOLARSHIP 31 GOVERNANCE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT: REGULATION 31 RE-CENTRALISATION: INSTITUTIONAL COMPETITION 34 DECENTRALISATION AS A POLITICAL FORMATION: THE RECOGNITION OF CLAIMS 37 ACTORS: TWILIGHT INSTITUTIONS 37 RELATIONS: THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION 40 THEORISING THE RESOURCE-­‐AUTHORITY NEXUS: SEEING LIKE A LOCAL GOVERNMENT 42 REGULATION 43 RECOGNITION 4...

Progress in Human Geography, 2011

The concept of resilience in ecology has been expanded into a framework to analyse human-environm... more The concept of resilience in ecology has been expanded into a framework to analyse human-environment dynamics. The extension of resilience notions to society has important limits, particularly its conceptualization of social change. The paper argues that this stems from the lack of attention to normative and epistemological issues underlying the notion of ‘social resilience’. We suggest that critically examining the role of knowledge at the intersections between social and environmental dynamics helps to address normative questions and to capture how power and competing value systems are not external to, but rather integral to the development and functioning of SES.

Ecologie & politique, 2011

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses de Sciences Po. © Presses de Sciences Po. Tous ... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses de Sciences Po. © Presses de Sciences Po. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.

Land, Sep 29, 2020

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development object... more Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development objectives and were introduced in the year 2000. In some cases, they have connected collectors of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) nuts with certified organic world markets, which can be understood as a 'market-based' approach to conservation. This paper examines how the benefits of this approach are distributed and argues that shea land formalization is crucial to this process. It makes this argument by drawing on interviews within two communities bordering Mole National Park. One community accepted to engage with, and benefitted from this approach, while the other did not. The paper analyzes narratives from different actors involved regarding why and how the market-based approach was accepted or rejected. It shows that, contrary to the neoliberal principles that underlie market-based conservation, a utility maximization rationale did not predominantly influence the (non-)engagement with this conservation approach. Instead, it was the history of land relations between communities and the state that influenced the decisions of the communities. We highlight the role of traditional authorities and NGOs brokering this process and unpack who in the communities profited and who was left out from benefits from this market-based conservation initiative.

Gender Place and Culture, Jan 25, 2022

Geographica Helvetica, May 3, 2018

This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso c... more This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso called Chantier d'Aménagement Forestier (CAF), which focuses on the participatory sustainable production of fuelwood and is widely supported by international donors despite evidence of its shortcomings. We analyse the surprising persistence of the CAF model as a case of the territorialisation of state power through the reproduction of "political forests"-drawing on the work of Peluso and Vandergeest (2001, 2011). Analysing some the shortcomings and incoherencies of the model, we bring to light the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of the CAF as a "political forest". We show that informal regulatory arrangements have emerged between state and non-state actors, namely merchants and customary authorities, over the production of fuelwood. We call these arrangements "fuelwood territorialities" because they have contributed to keeping the CAF's resource model unquestioned. With fuelwood territorialities, we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of "political forests", that is, the process of state territorialisation through forest governance. This analysis helps clarify how certain areas, such as the CAFs, keep being officially represented as "forest" even though they are dominated by a patchwork of fields, fallows, and savannahs and do not have the ecological characteristics of one.

Commercial interest in land has been increasing in recent years. While the trend is global, Afric... more Commercial interest in land has been increasing in recent years. While the trend is global, Africa has been centre stage to this new wave of land acquisitions. Agricultural investments can contribute to economic development and poverty reduction. But evidence suggests that many investments have failed to live up to expectations. In many cases, the deals have left villagers worse off than they would have been without the investment. Many deals are happening in developing countries where food security challenges are acute, and land tenure systems insecure. There is a growing body of evidence on the scale, geography, drivers, features and socioeconomic outcomes of large-scale land acquisitions. There is also broad agreement that improving accountability is critical in ensuring that investment processes respond to local aspirations. But few studies have specifically explored constraints and opportunities in the accountability of public authorities involved with large-scale land acquisitions. Do legal frameworks provide effective avenues for people to have their voices heard? What strategies are villagers using to respond to large-scale land acquisitions-and what difference do these strategies make? This report, commissioned by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and prepared by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), is a step towards answering these questions. The report takes stock of evidence about opportunities and challenges affecting the accountability of public authorities in large-scale land acquisitions, and about the role of legal empowerment as a citizen-driven pathway to greater accountability. The report builds on, and contributes to, a decade's worth of research that IDRC has supported on access to land rights globally, especially for women, and IIED's research on the global land rush and analysis generated through its Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment initiative. We hope that others might find this report useful in their own efforts to ensure accountability along pathways to sustainable development in a rapidly changing world.

Gates Open Res, Mar 1, 2019

Burkina Faso is currently experiencing a dramatic gold mining boom. it has been fuelled by a hike... more Burkina Faso is currently experiencing a dramatic gold mining boom. it has been fuelled by a hike in global gold prices and by government reforms aimed to attract Foreign direct investment in the sector. gold mining has enormous potential to support development that benefits the poor. Six industrial mines have been opened since 2008, and seven others are projected. at the same time, small-scale artisanal mining has rapidly expanded and generated a unique increase in wealth for rural households.

Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa (CODESRIA) eBooks, 2015

Political Geography, Nov 1, 2021

Geographica Helvetica, Oct 9, 2018

Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging... more Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging trend towards a decrease in deforestation rates, but it also points out that since 1990 total forest loss corresponds to an area the size of South Africa. Efforts to curtail deforestation require reliable assessments, yet current definitions for what a forest exactly is differ significantly across countries, institutions and epistemic communities. Those differences have implications for forest management efforts: they entail different understandings about where exactly a forest starts and ends, and therefore also engender misunderstandings about where a forest should start and end, and about how forests should be managed. This special issue brings together different perspectives from practitioners and academic disciplines-including linguistics, geographic information science and human geography-around the problem of understanding and characterizing forest. By bringing together different disciplinary viewpoints, we hope to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary efforts to analyse forest change. In this introduction, we propose that interrogating the relationship between forest definitions, boundaries and ways of valuing forests constitutes a productive way to critically conceptualize the trouble that forest is in.

Dialogues in human geography, Jun 26, 2019

To me that what Simon and Hayek have in common is a deep epistemological connection about the abi... more To me that what Simon and Hayek have in common is a deep epistemological connection about the ability to understand and control social complexity and how they think about decision-making. For Hayek this was clear in his debate over socialist calculation and what planning was doomed. For Simon it is wrapped up with boundedness and design. But let's also recall that Hayek himself thought in design terms, through the law, and forms of constitutionalism (see Quinn Slobodian's magnificent book Globalists). Which is to say that the relation between the two men and resiliency is a very particular type of contingency: a deep isomorphism, an elective affinity, a profound family resemblance. Nobody says Haykeian thought necessitated the emergence of resilience, but a true genealogical account would offer up a much more robust understanding of what is actually contingent about their relation. And it would suggest perhaps that the potentiality and transgressive alternatives which Grove so assiduously, even desperately searches for, might be quite chimerical.

Revue internationale des études du développement

Land, 2020

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development object... more Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development objectives and were introduced in the year 2000. In some cases, they have connected collectors of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) nuts with certified organic world markets, which can be understood as a ‘market-based’ approach to conservation. This paper examines how the benefits of this approach are distributed and argues that shea land formalization is crucial to this process. It makes this argument by drawing on interviews within two communities bordering Mole National Park. One community accepted to engage with, and benefitted from this approach, while the other did not. The paper analyzes narratives from different actors involved regarding why and how the market-based approach was accepted or rejected. It shows that, contrary to the neoliberal principles that underlie market-based conservation, a utility maximization rationale did not predominantly influence the (non-)engagement with this conse...

Geographica Helvetica, 2018

Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging... more Forest is in trouble. The most recent (2015) FAO Forest Resources Assessment shows an encouraging trend towards a decrease in deforestation rates, but it also points out that since 1990 total forest loss corresponds to an area the size of South Africa. Efforts to curtail deforestation require reliable assessments, yet current definitions for what a forest exactly is differ significantly across countries, institutions and epistemic communities. Those differences have implications for forest management efforts: they entail different understandings about where exactly a forest starts and ends, and therefore also engender misunderstandings about where a forest should start and end, and about how forests should be managed. This special issue brings together different perspectives from practitioners and academic disciplines-including linguistics, geographic information science and human geography-around the problem of understanding and characterizing forest. By bringing together different disciplinary viewpoints, we hope to contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary efforts to analyse forest change. In this introduction, we propose that interrogating the relationship between forest definitions, boundaries and ways of valuing forests constitutes a productive way to critically conceptualize the trouble that forest is in.

Geoforum, 2019

The paper examines how the "politics of belonging" that is expressed through claims of autochthon... more The paper examines how the "politics of belonging" that is expressed through claims of autochthony, relates to citizenship. Claims of autochthony, or claims to have settled a given place first, have become increasingly common in Africa, but they clash with efforts to introduce notions of national citizenship under the democratization and decentralization reforms that have been adopted across the continent in the last three decades. This paper analyses this tension through the empirical case of autochthony claims that emerged in the context of the creation of a "municipal forest" under the forest decentralization reform in Burkina Faso, which draws on community-based governance. It argues that in this case, autochthony is a claim for the rights to have rights, for citizenship, that takes shape within a wider politics of framing what "the community" is, and what it is good for on the ground. It draws on the work of Tania Li's work on indigeneity to illuminate the role of some of the contradictions underlying this framingnamely the lack of actual devolution and the reification of "the customary"that help understand why autochthony becomes a powerful positioning to claim the right to have rights. So, while autochthony first appears as a breakdown of (national) community, because it clashes with the juridico-legal ideal of citizenship, if we look at the politics of decentralizing forest management in practice, it rather seems to be an integral part of claiming the rights to have rights within a globalised "community-based" form of rule.

Geographica Helvetica, 2018

This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso c... more This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management programme in Burkina Faso called Chantier d'Aménagement Forestier (CAF), which focuses on the participatory sustainable production of fuelwood and is widely supported by international donors despite evidence of its shortcomings. We analyse the surprising persistence of the CAF model as a case of the territorialisation of state power through the reproduction of "political forests"-drawing on the work of Peluso and Vandergeest (2001, 2011). Analysing some the shortcomings and incoherencies of the model, we bring to light the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of the CAF as a "political forest". We show that informal regulatory arrangements have emerged between state and non-state actors, namely merchants and customary authorities, over the production of fuelwood. We call these arrangements "fuelwood territorialities" because they have contributed to keeping the CAF's resource model unquestioned. With fuelwood territorialities, we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the reproduction of "political forests", that is, the process of state territorialisation through forest governance. This analysis helps clarify how certain areas, such as the CAFs, keep being officially represented as "forest" even though they are dominated by a patchwork of fields, fallows, and savannahs and do not have the ecological characteristics of one.

World Development, 2016

This paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush. The liberalizati... more This paper studies the regulation of concessions in the global gold mining rush. The liberalization of the gold mining sector has given way to complex forms of regulation where non-state and illegal mining entrepreneurs compete in governing mining extraction. Taking the case of gold mining in Burkina Faso, this paper analyses the conditions and dynamics under which such complex regulation takes place. We draw on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Northern Burkina Faso, in particular the Burkinabè mining sector. We argue that enclave economies in the gold mining sector are co-produced by state and market regulation through a ''plurification" of regulatory authority. This ''plurification" is the effect of competition among different frontier entrepreneurs, who seek to broker regulatory authority in mining concession sites. We show that concession sites are not discrete extractive enclaves, but are better understood as indiscrete sites that are entangled in local politics and social relations. Rather than thinning social relations, as is often claimed, we observe that enclave economies thicken politics around concessionary regimes, where governmental bodies re-emerge as an arbitrating regulatory force. These findings problematize policy prescriptions to formalize the gold mining sector and draw attention to the role of the state in re/producing frontier entrepreneurs with unequal political rights to claiming concessions.

Frontiers in Human Dynamics

A buoyant debate has grown in political ecology and agrarian studies around the concept of extrac... more A buoyant debate has grown in political ecology and agrarian studies around the concept of extractivism. It shines a light on forms of human and non-human depletion that fuel contemporary capitalism. Within this debate however, artisan mining has been hard to fit in. Artisan mining is a form of small scale mineral extraction that occupies around 45 million people around the world, and sustains the life of many more, especially in the Global South. Much research has looked at this expanding form of livelihood, particularly through the prism of its persistent informality, its labor organization, and its challenges to environmental and labor rights. However, it has not been well-theorized in relations to extractivism, sitting uncomfortably with dominant categories such as “the community”, “the company”, and “social movements” in political ecology analyses. The paper maps out entry points to studying the significance of artisan mining within dynamics of extractive capitalism by bringing...

i Lay summary ii Acknowledgment iii Declaration of own work iv Abbreviations v List of figures vi... more i Lay summary ii Acknowledgment iii Declaration of own work iv Abbreviations v List of figures vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 BURKINA FASO AS A CASE OF THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY 5 NATURAL RESOURCES AS A LENS: COMPETING INSTITUTIONS OF POWER IN BURKINA FASO 8 INSTITUTIONS OF POWER OVER GOLD RESOURCES 9 INSTITUTIONS OF POWER OVER WOODFUEL RESOURCES 11 COMPETING CLAIMS: THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTONOMY 12 THE CASE OF SÉGUÉNÉGA 14 LAYOUT OF THE THESIS 18 CHAPTER 2. DECENTRALISATION AND NATURAL RESOURCE PRODUCTION 25 BEYOND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: FROM GOVERNANCE TO GOVERNMENTALITY 27 WHOSE GOVERNMENTAL RATIONALITY? A DIVIDED POLITICAL ECONOMIC SCHOLARSHIP 31 GOVERNANCE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT: REGULATION 31 RE-CENTRALISATION: INSTITUTIONAL COMPETITION 34 DECENTRALISATION AS A POLITICAL FORMATION: THE RECOGNITION OF CLAIMS 37 ACTORS: TWILIGHT INSTITUTIONS 37 RELATIONS: THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION 40 THEORISING THE RESOURCE-­‐AUTHORITY NEXUS: SEEING LIKE A LOCAL GOVERNMENT 42 REGULATION 43 RECOGNITION 4...

Progress in Human Geography, 2011

The concept of resilience in ecology has been expanded into a framework to analyse human-environm... more The concept of resilience in ecology has been expanded into a framework to analyse human-environment dynamics. The extension of resilience notions to society has important limits, particularly its conceptualization of social change. The paper argues that this stems from the lack of attention to normative and epistemological issues underlying the notion of ‘social resilience’. We suggest that critically examining the role of knowledge at the intersections between social and environmental dynamics helps to address normative questions and to capture how power and competing value systems are not external to, but rather integral to the development and functioning of SES.

Ecologie & politique, 2011

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses de Sciences Po. © Presses de Sciences Po. Tous ... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses de Sciences Po. © Presses de Sciences Po. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.