Commodity Frontiers Initiative

Text: Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professorship in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Accepting Applications for 2026-2027. The Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Oppurtunity!

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University invites applications for the Craig M. Cogut Visiting Professorship of 2026–2027.

Please share with colleagues based in Latin America and the Caribbean who may be interested!

More info: apply.interfolio.com/176615

11.11.2025 11:34 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Fig. 1. A map of Zijin’s and related investments mentioned in this article (Source: the article’s authors).

New article from issue 7!

'There is a clear link between the expansion of Zijin in China and Central Asia, in South America, in DR Congo, and the increased world demand for minerals required by the so-called energy transition'

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu... #CFI

23.10.2025 22:26 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Oliver Ressler, “Carbon and Captivity”, 4K video, 33 min., 2020. Courtesy of the artist; 
àngels, Barcelona; The Gallery Apart, Rome © Bildrecht, Vienna. https://www.ressler.at/carbon_and_captivity/

New article from Marjolijn Dijkman and Oliver Ressler.

‘We need to understand that the main appeal of CCS
for the fossil industries lies in the huge new subsidies
it promises the industry.'

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu... #CFI

24.09.2025 11:41 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

Harvesting of oil palm fruits. Photo provided by the author.

New article from Pepe Roswaldy.

'To what degree do carbon trading and offsetting serve as a form of externalization [where] plantation workers will become the ones held responsible for the Global North’s (...) carbon emissions?'

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu...

17.09.2025 12:48 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Figure 1: Map of NRT Carbon project area within Laikipia, Samburu, Isiolo and Marsabit Counties in Northern Kenya. modified from (Owino et al., forthcoming)

New article from Evelyne Owino.

'The carbon project poses the risk of dispossession of pastoralists from their ancestral lands, amplifying resource competition by creating scarcity in fragile ecologies...'

Read it journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu.... #CFI

@unibonn.bsky.social @bicc.de

10.09.2025 17:40 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Photo by Mehra Gharibian: Fields of Tulare, CA.

New article from Mehra Gharibian and Jose Cruz.

'...as in other commodity frontiers, the relationship between teacher and student is imbued with the capitalist /settler context within which they live, learn, and work.'

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu... #CFI

03.09.2025 08:31 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

New article from Julia Loginova.

‘As Curley argues, carbon sovereignty as a practice is shaped by Indigenous nations asserting control over their carbon resources in the face of colonial and capitalist pressures [...].’

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu.... #CFI

23.07.2025 14:11 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Image titled, in English, “Grand Sight of the Open Working Fushun Colliery. ” In the Japanese text below, there is an additional phrase, “limitless treasure house”, which appeals to the then widely held notion that Fushun’s coal resources were so bountiful as to be essentially inexhaustible. This image comes from a postcard that dates to the early 1930s. [Postcard from the author's collection.]

New article from Tomás Bartoletti, Samuël Coghe and Victor Seow.

‘[T]echnocracy operates […] as an ideology that not only describes the system itself, but also the sets of ideas that animate the emergence of the system.’

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu.... #CFI

16.07.2025 12:36 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 1

Source: Notes on the Manufacture of Salt in the Tamluk Agency by H.C. Hamilton, Salt Agent, September 23, 1852, Appendix B, British Parliamentary Papers, vol. 26, 1856.

New article from Sayako Kanda.

‘Using diverse fuels, whether fossil or otherwise, can [...] be viewed as India’s long-term reaction to saving scarce fuel resources and mitigating fuel shortages.’

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu... #CFI

09.07.2025 12:11 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Kaymoor Coal Mine, South side of New River, upstream of New River Gorge Bridge, Fayetteville, Fayette County, WV. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

New article from Hiroki Shin and Simon Jackson.

‘Where geographers and anthropologists have discussed the spatial dimensions of colonial extraction, historians can shed new light on temporal aspects.’ (edited for brevity)

Read the article on journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu...

#CFI

25.06.2025 10:57 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Join us 19 June from 10-11.30pm CEST for a discussion with Sunil Amrith on his book, "The Burning Earth" followed by commentaries from Hendro Sangkoyo and Marina Bedran, and a general discussion.

knaw-nl.zoom.us/j/8862454782...
Meeting-ID: 886 2454 7823
Password: 339393

30.05.2025 14:51 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

Issue 7 of Commodity Frontiers is live on our new website! Contributors explore carbon frontiers through power, conflict, and sovereignty. journal.commodityfrontiers.com/journal-issu...

30.05.2025 13:01 — 👍 12    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 3