Citation

Sikor T, Lund C. Div. Change 2009; 40(1): 1-22.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Institute of Social Studies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01503.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this introduction we argue that access and property regarding natural resources are intimately bound up with the exercise of power and authority. The process of seeking authorizations for property claims also has the effect of granting authority to the authorizing politico-legal institution. In consequence, struggles over natural resources in an institutionally pluralist context are processes of everyday state formation. Through the discussion of this theoretical proposition we point to legitimizing practices, territoriality and violence as offering particular insights into the recursively constituted relations between struggles over access and property regarding natural resources, contestations about power and authority, and state formation.