Blood, timber and plantations: the violence of enclosing lives and livelihoods in the Philippines

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper considers the relationship between authoritarian populism and extractivism by examining the violence against ‘environmental defenders’ in the Philippines. Since 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte’s populist mandates have facilitated violence against opponents of the regime’s agendas. We examine the relationship between violence and ‘extractive enclosures’ on Mindanao and Palawan – two resource-rich islands with contrasting histories of commodity booms and land struggles. We show how the routine assassinations of environmental defenders is entangled with expanding extractivism. We argue that Duterte’s counterinsurgency tactics have intensified violence against opponents of palm oil and mining just as ‘protective enclosures’ are rezoned to facilitate extractivism.