The making of resource frontier spaces in the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia: A critical analysis of narratives, actors and drivers in the scientific literature
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Forest frontiers are rapidly changing to production of commodity agriculture throughout the tropics, with far-reaching transformations in landscapes and livelihoods. Diverse land uses in frontiers – often mixed swidden cultivation systems and forest mosaics under forms of customary tenure –generate multiple ecosystem services, support local societies, and are being lost with increasingly high costs.
Many of the dynamics that drive frontier commoditization are well-rehearsed. Policies to deregulate markets, privatize land tenure, improve connectivity and open borders to trade have stimulated resource exploitation. The accompanying territorial interventions such as new enclosures, property regimes and claims are purposefully employed to create space and labor, and have radically reconfigured the relationships of millions of people to land and rule. Within these politico-economic landscapes, local people navigate and execute agency to pursue their own development aspirations. Narratives of what is an opportunity for whom, who should benefit from these spaces, and what is a problem in need for a solution have shaped these policies and practices over time. They are also employed to legitimize development choices in frontiers.
Science plays a critical role in these processes, by putting forward (and discarding) particular knowledge and understandings, contributing to problematisations and suggesting new solutions. In this paper, we ask how science has portrayed forest frontiers in the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia over time. Specifically, we analyse the storylines put forward in the scientific literature and how these have contributed to the creation of spaces for resource frontiers of the colonial and post-colonial state. Which actors have what roles in the frontiers, and how are processes of
territorialization justified or challenged? This analysis allows for a deeper understanding of how commodification of frontiers came about, and what role science plays within.
Keywords: Forest frontiers, narratives, territorialization, Congo Basin, Southeast Asia
ID: 3488085