The political ecology of resource corruption: Co-constituting legality and territoriality at the frontier

In the contemporary global political economy, the ‘resource frontier’ is a primary site of intense capital speculation and accumulation as well as regulatory experimentation. Whether driven by the dramatic expansion of the agricultural complex, the incessant growth of extractive industries, or the ‘green’ imperatives of climate change adaptation and mitigation, these spaces are, far from being ‘empty zones’, characterized by overlapping jurisdictions, contested land titles, and the presence of ‘shadow’ or ‘fragmented’ state architectures. This Special Issue brings together five distinct ethnographic and institutional analyses to interrogate a central, troubling paradox: how corruption—conventionally framed as the absence or failure of law and governance—has become a foundational tool in the co-constitution of legal and territorial order at the resource frontier. Moving beyond overly simplistic ‘principal-agent’ models, the contributors revisit the political ecology of resource corruption, arguing that such corruption is an essential mechanism of state territorialization in these frontiers. From the miombo woodlands of Tanzania to the palm oil frontiers of the Peruvian Amazon, these articles demonstrate how ‘illicit’ practices are used to produce ‘legal truths’ that facilitate land and green grabbing, rent accumulation, and the further marginalization of indigenous and pastoralist communities.