In a primary commodities boom spurred on by the rise of China, countries the world over are turning to the extraction of natural resources and the export of primary commodities as an antidote to the global recession. The New Extractivism addresses a fundamental dilemma faced by these governments: to pursue, or not, a development strategy based on resource extraction in the face of immense social and environmental costs, not to mention mass resistance from the people negatively affected by it.With fresh insight and analysis from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, this book looks at the political dynamics of capitalist development in a region where the neoliberal model is collapsing under the weight of a resistance movement lead by peasant farmers and indigenous communities. It calls for us to understand the new extractivism not as a viable development model for the post-neoliberal world, but as the dangerous emergence of a new form of imperialism.

Introduction 1. A new model or extractive imperialism? 2. Argentina: Extractivist dynamics of soya production and open-pit mining - Norma Giarracca and Miguel Teubal 3. Bolivia: Between voluntarist developmentalism and pragmatic extractivism - Henry Veltmeyer 4. Colombia: The mining boom: a catalyst of development or resistance? - Kyla Sankey 5. Ecuador: Extractivist dynamics, politics and discourse - Pablo Dávalos and Verónica Albuja 6. Mexico: The political ecology of mining - Darcy Victor Tetreault 7. Peru: Mining capital and social resistance - Jan Lust 8. Theses on extractive imperialism and the post-neoliberal state