Paper short abstract:

Social scientists perform contested tasks and adopt varied roles in the rapid and protracted timelines of extraction. We interrogate the fluctuating roles and influences of social scientists in the logistical, cultural, and economical administration of extractive projects.

Paper long abstract:

Social scientists perform contested tasks and adopt varied roles in the rapid and protracted timelines of extraction. Through a political economy that draws on the anthropologies of corporate entities and scholarship on the geo- and body-politics of 'expert' knowledge within international development and extractive logics in areas of Africa and Asia, we interrogate the fluctuating roles and influences of social scientists in the logistical, cultural, and economical administration of extractive projects. We analyse the work of social scientists as surveyors; economic and cultural consultants; mediators; external monitors in intergenerational extractive projects; and allies in anti-extractive resistances. We sketch four distinct conceptualisations for understanding and framing the role of social scientists in the generation, circulation and dominance of 'rationalising policy' about the extractive industry within society: flexians (Wedel), corporate counter-insurgency (Dunlap), racialized underdevelopment (Rodney) and unintended consequences (Murray Li). For this presentation, we focus on Walter Rodney's racialized underdevelopment and look at the important work of critical scholar-activists as allies in anti-extractive resistance in and beyond the classroom.