Global production networks and natural resource extraction: adding a political ecology perspective

Abstract

The article examines how to adapt the global production network (GPN) approach to situations of natural resource extraction. Based on an integration of a political ecology perspective into GPN research, we exemplarily apply the GPN framework to the primary sector. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork regarding Argentine lithium mining and Brazilian soy agribusiness we illustrate that particularly a political ecological environmental perspective allows for a more nuanced and critical analysis of ambiguous local development outcomes. While from a purely economic development perspective in both cases the economic activity (integrated into GPNs) is celebrated as an imperative economic growth driver, our framework helps identify the emergence of unilateral dependencies, a decline of social autonomy and an unequal distribution of environmental risks.