...ownership the mineral-rich tracts of developing countries. Based on her activist research with mining communities, she shows that mineral resource management is characterised by multiple actors with their multiple voices, and it is important for us to recognise these actors and listen to their voices.

Contesting the ground

Some theories concerning natural resources--'resource security,' 'resource conflicts,' 'resource wars' and 'resource curse'--have entered the popular domain in discussions on resources. Their simplistic and generalising appeal instigates widespread and uncritical acceptance. Therefore, the hidden discourses within them threaten to undermine possible alternative explanations of mineral use by communities in the third world. In this article, I expose informal mining practices in order to critique the dominant perceptions of conflicts over natural resources and to show how they delegitimise the livelihoods of many communities. For example, the images of 'paradox of plenty' and resource conflicts suggest deviant and unruly behaviour of the third world poor. The micro-reality is much more complex, involving every day struggles of survival for millions of people in the mineral-rich tracts of these countries.

Being of Indian origin, I recognize the emerging mainstream development thinking on resource boons and curses as right in line with the fatalism and deterministic approach of South Asian philosophy. However, after years of working in local communities, I cannot help but feel disturbed by the uncritical use of terminologies and concepts that take for granted a positivist and causal framework in explaining the relationships between communities and mineral resources. My focus is not on curses and boons but on: 'How do communities pursue livelihoods in mineral-rich tracts in developing countries?' Much of my knowledge comes from community practices in the mineral-rich tracts of South Asia, primarily the collieries of eastern India, but also small mines and quarries producing a range of other commodities.

The title derives from a Bengali folk proverb, 'elomelo kore de Ma lootepute khai.' This poetic banditry perfectly explains what these theories around natural resources indirectly perpetrate; a picture of complete lack of control and disorder in the third world, whose inhabitants--by some irrational logic of nature--have found themselves endowed with resources that they cannot or do not know how to deal with, in an orderly fashion. They envisage a paranoid fear about the unruly third world, a landscape of apprehension, risk and insecurity where conflicts could only be resolved for one and all if either state-owned or multinational corporations take over the control and ownership of mineral resources, and manage them in a systematic manner--in the process putting their profits first and taking over the control of what should rightfully belong to the communities.

The grim scenarios of resource curse, conflicts and wars

The question, whether mineral wealth is a blessing or a curse, more or less began with Richard Auty's assertion that: 'Since the 1960s, the resource-poor countries have outperformed the resource-rich countries compared by a considerable margin' (Auty, 2001: 840). Auty has been considering economic growth indicators and benefits from mineral revenues, mainly exports, but he soon developed a following amongst resource economists who busied themselves in applying the thesis to empirical studies on a regional and subnational basis, and to form a grand theory of all natural resources (see Sachs and Warner 2001). For them, this curse becomes an impediment to development by causing 'Dutch disease'--the slump in other sectors of the economy that accompanies the influx of revenues from natural resource exports. The dependence on natural resource revenues makes the national economy vulnerable to resource price volatility and, as governments borrow excessive amounts in the hope of repayments from natural resource earnings, the fall in the real exchange rate or prices combine to destabilise the economy, and making the debt burden impossible to repay. Associated factors that help spread the curse leading to 'failed states' are corruption of the officials running the government and low income and education levels of people. Common examples of cursed countries include Sierra Leone,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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