Deregulated Infrastructures of Extraction in Rainforest Frontiers

Drawing on empirical data collected in the rainforests of Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, the project offers a comparative study of what are referred to here as incursion economies - land grabbing, illegal logging, and prospector mining - that take place below the radar. In so doing, INFRACURSIONS forges a novel approach to 'incursion infrastructures' that explores the clandestine economic activities that invade the global margins and invariably result in environmental degradation. Not only is this research timely and urgent in its focus but will be the first large-scale study of its kind to bring together various deregulated extractive activities investigated as an integrative transboundary phenomenon. It also reconfigures anthropological approaches to social and moral norms in contexts of environmental destruction in the Global South and beyond. The project asks: 1. What historical factors have led to incursions and what are the environmental impacts? 2. What are the motivations and experiences that underpin incursion economies? 3. What social and technical arrangements facilitate the existence of incursions? 4. How do incursion economies intersect? INFRACURSIONS answers these questions through a ground-breaking heuristic of fluid infrastructure; an actor-centred methodology; partnership between the fields of anthropology, environmental science, and social policy; the development of an Incursion Economies Research Cluster; an open access data dashboard/repository; and regular analysis labs.