Digital Commons Network^™

Priorities For Governing Large-Scale Infrastructure In The Tropics, Anthony Bebbington, Avecita Chicchon, Nicholas Cuba, Emily Greenspan, Susanna Hecht, Denise Humphreys Bebbington, Susan Kandel, Tracey Osborne, Rebecca Ray, John Rogan, Laura Sauls

Sustainability and Social Justice

National governments, International Financial Institutions, and the G-20 have intensified investments of infrastructure to boost economic growth in the wake of economic recessions and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This infrastructure enables investments in large-scale agriculture, ranching, mining, and oil and gas extraction which tend to intensify the current inequalities. These activities is slated to occur in tropical forests and on lands historically occupied by Indigenous, Afro-Descendant, Traditional and other rural peoples. This has unprecedented negative impact on the ecosystem, the biodiversity as well as on the peoples.

This article calls for a 'three-leg' agenda to align infrastructure, development, …

Analyzing The Recent, Rapid Tourism Development In Panama's Bocas Del Toro Archipelago: Is Socioenvironmental Justice Attainable?, Olivia R. Bourque

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The Bocas del Toro archipelago of Panama has seen a rapid growth in its tourism industry since the 1990s. From a neoliberal perspective, tourism development is beneficial for all. Alternatively, I analyze the recent, rapid tourism development in Bocas from a critical development theoretical perspective, identifying its positive and negative implications, as well as who they accrue to. While there are economic benefits to tourism in Bocas, only foreign investors, the Panamanian government and English-speaking residents appear to earn them. The Bocas residents, and indigenous Ngöbe residents in particular, suffer from a range of economic, sociocultural, environmental and land access …

Contention And Ambiguity: Mining And The Possibilities Of Development, Anthony Bebbington, Leonith Hinojosa, Denise Humphreys Bebbington, Maria Luisa Burneo, Ximena Warnaars

Sustainability and Social Justice

The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development. They then describe the different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change. The conclusions address how far such protests might contribute to …