[Raumänderung!] Situating extractivism post-Soviet geographies. Extractive socionatures and resistance in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

Ideologies of modernity extend resource frontiers to thousands of meters below and above the soil in pursuit of progress. Accelerating extractivism in fact entrenches uneven development and injustices across the globe. Yet, our age is not only hyper-extractive, it is also resistant: multifarious communities stand up against incessant extractivism that uproots their socionatures and threatens their futures. In this lecture, Beril will situate global extractivism in gold mining and linked struggles for socionatural justice in post-Soviet geographies. Focusing on expanding gold mining in Kyrgyzstan in the last three decades, the talk will present a grounded account of multi-scalar processes and practices that have rushed and resisted the making and mining of gold in the country.

Beril is a development practitioner turned academic. Until recently, she based at the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Berlin, where she led the research project “China, the EU and Economic Development in Eastern Europe and EurasiaExterner Link.” As a critical geographer, she follows discourses and practices of modernity, governance and development through extractive infrastructure projects, above and below ground, along corridors and roads, in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Thereby, she keeps a particular eye on the role that China and the EU play in the region. Beril holds a PhD in Geography from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and has a background in Development Studies (MSc at London School of Economics and Political Science) and international economics (BA Corvinus University of Budapest). Before returning to academia, she led transdisciplinary development projects on resource governance on behalf of the German government, the EU and other multilateral organisations.