From Resource Peripheries to Emerging Markets: Reconfiguring Positionalities in Global Production Networks

Abstract

Several scholars have drawn upon the GVC/GPN approach to discuss the various dilemmas surrounding economic development in resource peripheries. However, most of the literature tends to focus on the “upstream” aspects of resource extraction and there have been few accounts surrounding market development in resource peripheries. In this chapter, I discuss how authorities in nation-states play a key role in reconfiguring the positionalities of resource peripheries from exporters to emerging markets within global production networks. I suggest that such positionalities are relationally constituted and therefore subject to change over time. These discussions are informed by an empirical study of natural gas-based energy development in Indonesia and Myanmar. Indonesia and Myanmar are both hydrocarbon-rich economies that have historically been coupled to natural gas production networks as exporters. The export of natural gas has occurred at the expense of domestic energy development as parts of the population have no access to affordable electricity supply. Recently, authorities in both countries have sought to reconfigure the current energy systems by increasing the utilization of natural gas for power generation by developing liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure. This chapter finds there are significant challenges for LNG-based energy development in Myanmar and Indonesia which point to broader contradictions for resource peripheries surrounding the reconfiguration of their positionalities within GPNs.