Neoliberal politics of resource extraction: Moroccan argan oil

Abstract

This article addresses the intertwining and co-production of normative and technological strands in the politics of natural resource extraction. It explores how the integration of a forest resource in the global economy by means of normative and technological appropriation is associated with the delegation of responsibility for its conservation and the sustainability of its extraction management to local-use rights holders. In the process, such entanglements involve the commodification of a local staple as a niche product exploitable on a global scale. The transformation of the access rights of local people into responsibilities is addressed as an implicit form of de facto soft land and resource grabbing (e.g. Zoomers 2010; Sassen 2013; Seufert 2013). This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate around forms of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2003; Kelly 2011; Corson 2011). The specific case study involves the emergence of argan oil on the world market. © 2014 © 2014 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.