Book Review: Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231165519 |
| Author | Liam Midzain-Gobin |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
claims, whether it be cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, or silver, although the global
market value constantly adds layers of conflict. As academics and other commentators
have noted, many companies also perceived themselves, or were perceived, as “unpun-
ishable.”Emulating political patronage structures, mine sites may present themselves
as positive and beneficial while they are exploitative and dangerous to many.
More challenging in this globally competitive industry is the influence of China’s
foreign policy objectives, addressed by several authors in this section. China takes
no issue with the sometimes-weak governance of African states and is content to dis-
regard corruption, conflict, or other local social abuses in order to access mines. While
not immune to similar charges, Western companies are held to international standards
that China is not. INGOs are forcing cleaner definitions, standards, and expectations.
Slowly, both local and host investor politics are producing “more nuanced
agreements.”
7
Finally, in their concluding chapter, Andrews, Edward Akuffo, and Grant observe
that none of the included case studies point to an ideal mode of natural resources devel-
opment. Each actor (state, corporation, community, NGO, IGO, INGO) presents
various opportunities and drawbacks. Conflicting expectations, intentions, and under-
standings continue to grossly impede meaningful progress for people across the con-
tinent. The Global North’s increasing penchant toward the development of industry-
wide norms for mining sites around the world, while laudable, is still at its core
imbued with colonialism and colonial superiority over the resource-rich countries of
Africa. Whether natural resource development is a panacea or a Pandora’s box
remains inconclusive.
Adam J Barker
Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2021. 298 pp. $34.95 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-77486-541-8
Reviewed by: Liam Midzain-Gobin (Liam Midzain-Gobin, Department of Political Science,
Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharine’s, Saint Catharines, ON L2S 3A1,
Canada. Email: lmidzaingobin@brocku.ca), Department of Political Science, Brock University,
Saint Catharines, ON, Canada
DOI: 10.1177/00207020231165519
Reviewing work in another discipline can oftentimes be a fraught endeavour. So, it is
with care that I review Adam J. Barker’sMaking and Breaking Settler Space: Five
Centuries of Colonization in North America. Barker is a geographer by training
whose scholarship contributes to the interdisciplinary fields of settler colonialism
7 David Walsh Pickering, “China and the Democratic Republic of Congo: What the Sicomines agreement
tells us about Beijing’s foreign policy in Africa,”in Natural Resource-Based Development in Africa, 317.
Book Reviews 733
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