Beyond Extraction: A Relational Approach to Exploitation, Governance, and Systemic Transformation in Global Extraction Frontiers

Objective

Beyond Extraction investigates how exploitation in the Amazon and Congo frontiers is produced, legitimised, and endured across time and scale. Moving beyond economic-only views, the project develops a relational analytics that links historical genealogies, lived experiences, material/financial circuits, and discursive–institutional architectures. Comparative work in two tri-border regions underpins two flagship outputs: a Relational Atlas of Exploitation—an open-access, network-based resource making patterns of harm and accountability legible—and a cross-regional policy and practice package (synthesis brief plus community-oriented toolkit). Five objectives structure the research: 1) reconstruct the historical, structural conditions that make exploitation durable; 2) ground these genealogies in lived and intergenerational experiences; 3) map material and financial circuits that connect situated harms to distant beneficiaries; 4) analyse the discursive and legal mechanisms that normalise or contest harm; and 5) identify leverage points for justice-oriented governance transformation. Methodologically, the project integrates archival and documentary research, ethnography and oral histories, governance and legal analysis, supply-chain/ownership tracing, and comparative synthesis. Iterative integration combines qualitative insight with structured mapping and networked representations. Partnerships with Indigenous federations, civil society, and IGOs ensure FPIC, GDPR-aligned data protection, and co-production protocols; open-science practices guide the dissemination of non-sensitive outputs. Impact pathways span science, society, and policy. Scientific contributions include a comparative, cross-continental framework and two open-access publications. Societal impacts centre community agency through the toolkit and accessible storytelling. Policy impacts include a multilingual synthesis brief and the Atlas to support due diligence and accountability debates in EU/UN fora.