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Resource concerns for territorial conflict

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to engage constructively with literature on armed conflict and resources in order to draw attention both to assumptions that hinder a more accurate or useful understanding of natural resources and their role in territorial conflict as well as to aspects of this field of research that merit further work. In much of the literature on resource conflict, territorial aspects are either implicitly or explicitly tied to resource conflict largely through the assumption that the value of territory is intrinsic. Little of the literature attempts to advance theory, specifically, either on the particular role of resources or on the meaning and objectives of conflict beyond a one-dimensional objective of maintaining or securing control of territory. The paper considers themes of resource scarcity and resource abundance in conflict. A third section focuses on an analysis both of natural resource databases and of conflict databases (both international and civil) which emphasizes problematic results of blending these databases to demonstrate correlations.

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Kansas, 213 Lindley Hall, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS, 66045-7613, USA

    Shannon O’Lear

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  1. Shannon O’Lear
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UIUC territorial conflict management workshop

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O’Lear, S. Resource concerns for territorial conflict. GeoJournal 64, 297–306 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-005-5808-y

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