Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T07:42:21.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Imagining the mineral nation: contested nation-building in Mongolia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sara L. Jackson
Sara L. Jackson*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, York University, N430 Ross Building, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON, Canada M3 J 1P3
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, located in Mongolia's South Gobi province, promises to rebuild the nation after two decades of economic and social instabilities following the 1990 revolution. While the company promotes the mine as the teleological solution to Mongolia's development, the state and public remain ambivalent, as concerns about a resource curse and Dutch Disease loom. In this paper, I argue that Oyu Tolgoi remains contested due to tensions between corporate and state actors as well as public concerns about the potential negative political, economic, and environmental effects of mining. Debates over the Oyu Tolgoi investment agreement negotiations and the immediate repercussions of the agreement signing reveal how the dual teleologies of building mineral nations crystallize in the neologism “Mine-golia.” This paper begins to fill a gap in the literature on mineral nations which privileges the role of the state, leaving how corporations engage in nation-building underexamined.

Keywords

nation-buildingresource curseDutch DiseaseMongolia“Mine-golia”
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 437 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agnew, John. 2004. “Nationalism.” In A Companion to Cultural Geography, edited by J. S. Duncan, N. C. Johnson, and Stern, R. H., 223–237. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Allen, David. 2010. “New Directions in the Study of Nation-Building: Views Through the Lens of Path Dependence.” International Studies Review 12 (3): 413–429.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1983/2006. Imagined Communities. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Auty, Richard M. 2001. “Transition Reform in the Mineral-Rich Caspian Region Countries.” Resources Policy 27 (3): 25–32.Google Scholar
Auty, Richard M. 2005. Resource Abundance and Economic Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Auty, Richard M. 2006. “Transition to Mid-Income Democracies or to Failed States?” Energy, Wealth and Governance in the Caucasus Central Asia, edited by Auty, Richard M. and de Soysa, Indra, 3–16. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bayarmaa, J. 2012. “'ၕ၈ၓၩ' ၒႆႅၵႆႃ ၳ႑ᄂ႑‘MINE-GOLIA.'” Orloo. Accessed November 15, 2012. http://www.orloo.info/readfull/uul-uurhai/9402-mine-golia Google Scholar
Bebbington, Anthony, Hinojosa, Leonith, Humphreys Bebbington, Denise, Louisa Burneo, Maria, and Warnaars, Ximena. 2008. “Contention and Ambiguity: Mining and the Possibilities of Development.” Development and Change 39 (6): 887–914.Google Scholar
Bebbington, Anthony, and Humphreys Bebbington, Denise. 2011. “An Andean Avatar: Post-Neoliberal and Neoliberal Strategies for Securing the Unobtainable.” New Political Economy 16 (1): 131–145.Google Scholar
Bridge, Gavin. 2004. “Mapping the Bonanza: Geographies of Mining Investment in an Era of Neoliberal Reform.” Professional Geographer 56 (3): 406–421.Google Scholar
Bruun, Ole. 2006. Precious Steppes. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Bulag, Uradyn. E. 1998. Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bulag, Uradyn. E. 2009. “From Mongolia to Mine-golia.” Asian Survey 49 (1): 129–134.Google Scholar
Bunker, Stephen G., and Ciccantell, Paul S. 2005. Globalization and the Race for Resources. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Byambajav, Dalaibuyan. 2010. “Mobilizing Against Dispossession: Gold Mining and a Local Resistance Movement in Mongolia.” Journal of the Center for Northern Humanities 5 (5): 13–32.Google Scholar
Camisani-Calzolari, F. A. 2004. “National and International Codes for Reporting Mineral Resources and Reserves: Their Relevance, Future and Comparison.” The Journal of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 2004 (June): 297–305.Google Scholar
Combellick-Bidney, Sarah. 2012. “Mongolia's Mining Controversies and the Politics of Place.” In Change in Democratic Mongolia, edited by Dierkes, Julian, 271–296. Boston, MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Coronil, Fernando. 1997. The Magical State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dickie, Mure. 2008. “Mongolia Poll Riots Trigger State of Emergency.” Financial Times, 3 July: 6.Google Scholar
Domjan, Paul, and Stone, Matt. 2010. “A Comparative Study of Resource Nationalism in Russia and Kazakhstan 2004–2008.” Europe-Asia Studies 62 (1): 35–62.Google Scholar
Dorian, James P. 1991. “USSR-Mongolia: A Minerals Association About to End.” Resources Policy 17 (1): 42–53.Google Scholar
EBRD. 2013. “Oyu Tolgoi”. Accessed November 15, 2013. http://www.ebrd.com/pages/project/psd/2012/41158.shtml Google Scholar
Edensor, Tim. 2002. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Elbegdorj, Tsakhiagiin. 2009. “Better for the Nation Make One Step Forward Than for the Leader Gallop Alone.” President of Mongolia. Accessed November 15, 2013. www.president.mn/eng/newsCenter/viewNews.php?newsId=53 Google Scholar
Enkhdelger, L. 2012. “‘Mine-Golia’ ᄂ႑, ‘Mongolia’ ᄂ႑.” Gogo.mn. May 30. Accessed November 15, 2012. http://economics.gogo.mn/news/105961 Google Scholar
Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria E. 1999. “Sustaining the Steppes: A Geographical History of Pastoral Land Use in Mongolia.” Geographical Review 89 (3): 315–342.Google Scholar
Friedland, Robert. 2005. “Nothing Like it on Planet Earth – Robert Friedland's Tour d'Tolgoi.” Resource Investor, 3 July. Accessed December 10, 2009. http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2005/3/Pages/Nothing-Like-it-on-Planet-Earth—Robert.aspx Google Scholar
Fritz, Verena. 2007. “Democratisation and Corruption in Mongolia.” Public Administration and Development 27 (3): 191–203.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983/2006. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Girvan, Norman. 1976. Corporate Imperialism. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Glaser-Schmidt, Elisabeth. 1995. “The Guggenheims and the Coming of the Great Depression in Chile, 1923–1934.” Business and Economic History 24 (1): 176–185.Google Scholar
Gledhill, John. 2008. “'The People's Oil': Nationalism, Globalization, and the Possibility of another Country in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela.” Focaal 52 (1): 57–74.Google Scholar
Halvaksz, Jamon. 2006. “Cannibalistic Imaginaries: Mining the Natural and Social Body in Papua New Guinea.” The Contemporary Pacific 18 (2): 335–359.Google Scholar
High, Mette. 2012. “The Cultural Logics of Illegality: Living Outside the Law in the Mongolian Gold Mines.” In Change in Democratic Mongolia, edited by Dierkes, J., 249–270. Boston, MA: Brill.Google Scholar
High, Mette. 2013. “Believing in Spirits, Doubting the Cosmos: Religious Reflexivity in the Mongolian Gold Mines.” In Ethnographies of Doubt, edited by Pelkmans, M., 59–84. London: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1983/2000. “Inventing Traditions.” In The Inventing of Traditions, edited by Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T., 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
IFC. 2013. “Oyu Tolgoi LLC”. Accessed November 15, 2013. http://ifcext.ifc.org/ifcext/spiwebsite1.nsf/ProjectDisplay/SII29007 Google Scholar
Isakovo, Asrel, Plekhanov, Alexander, and Zettelmeyer, Jeromin. 2012. “Managing Mongolia's Resource Boom.” EBRD Working Paper No. 138.Google Scholar
Jargalsaikhan, D. 2010. “de facto: with Parag Khanna, Minegolia.” Accessed November 19, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa_h7W2nayw Google Scholar
Jell-Bahlsen, Sabine, and Jell, Georg. 2012. “The trans-national Gold Curse of Papua New Guinea.” Dialect Anthropology 36 (3-4): 317–341.Google Scholar
Johnson, Nuala C. 2001. “From Time Immemorial: Narratives of Nationhood and the Making of National Space.” In Timespace, edited by May, J. and Thrift, N., 89–105. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kaplonski, Christopher. 2004. Truth, History, and Politics in Mongolia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kaup, Brent Z. 2010. “A Neoliberal Nationalization?: The Constraints on Natural-Gas-Led Development in Bolivia.” Latin American Perspectives 37 (3): 123–138.Google Scholar
Khanna, Parag. 2008. The Second World. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Kirsch, Stuart. 2007. “Indigenous Movements and the Risks of Counterglobalization: Tracking the Campaign against Papua New Guinea's Ok Tedi mine.” American Ethnologist 34 (2): 303–321.Google Scholar
Labban, Mazen. 2008. Space, Oil and Capital. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Le Billon, Philippe. 2001. “The Political Ecology of War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflict.” Political Geography 20 (5): 561–584.Google Scholar
Light, Nathan. 2011. “Genealogy, History, Nation.” Nationalities Papers 39 (1): 33–53.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Philip. 2004. “Chile's Recent Copper-Driven Prosperity: Does it Provide Lessons for Other Mineral Rich Developing Nations?” Minerals and Energy 19 (1): 16–31.Google Scholar
McNish, Jacquie. 1998. The Big Score. Toronto, ON: Random House.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. Rule of Experts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Jon P. 2003. “Looking Forward to the Past: National Identity and History in Malta.” Identities 10 (3): 377–398.Google Scholar
Ulsiin Ikh Khural, Mongol. 2006. Minerals Law. Ulaanbaatar, June 5.Google Scholar
Mukherjee, T. 2009. “What the Oyu Tolgoi Agreement Contains and What it Means for Mongolia.” Mongolian Mining Journal, 9 Oct. Accessed December 6, 2009. http://www.mongolianminingjournal.com/index.php?pid=1&sec=view&id=281 Google Scholar
Murray, William. 2003. “Informal Gold Mining and National Development: The Case of Mongolia.” International Development Planning Review 25 (2): 111–128.Google Scholar
Okonta, Ike. 2008. When Citizens Revolt. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Omeje, Kenneth. 2006. “The Rentier State: Oil-related Legislation and Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.” Conflict, Security & Development 6 (2): 211–230.Google Scholar
Nakano, Takeshi. 2004. “Theorising Economic Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 10 (3): 211–229.Google Scholar
Palazuelos, Enrique, and Fernández, Rafael. 2012. “Kazakhstan: Oil Endowment and Oil Empowerment.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (1): 27–37.Google Scholar
Peck, Jamie, and Tickell, Adam. 2002. “Neoliberalizing Space.” Antipode 34 (3): 380–404.Google Scholar
Penrose, Jan, and Mole, Richard C. 2008. “Nation-states and National Identity.” In The SAGE handbook of political geography, edited by K. R. Cox, M. Low, and Robinson, J., 271–284. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Pickel, Andreas. 2003. “Explaining, and Explaining with, Economic Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 9 (1): 105–127.Google Scholar
Polese, Abel. 2011. “Language and Identity in Ukraine: Was it Really Nation-Building?” Studies of Transition States and Societies 3 (3): 36–50.Google Scholar
Reeves, Jeffrey. 2011. “Resources, Sovereignty, and Governance: Can Mongolia Avoid the ‘Resource Curse'?” Asian Journal of Political Science 19 (2): 170–185.Google Scholar
Renan, Ernest. 1996. Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? What is a nation? English translation by Wanda Romer Taylor. Toronto: Tapir Press.Google Scholar
Tinto, Rio. 2013. Oyu Tolgoi. Accessed November 15, 20. http://www.riotinto.com/ourbusiness/oyutolgoi-4025.aspx Google Scholar
Rossabi, Morris. 2005. Modern Mongolia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rustemova, Assel. 2011. “Political Economy of Central Asia: Initial Reflections on the Need for a New Approach.” Journal of Eurasian Studies 2 (1): 30–39.Google Scholar
Saad-Filho, Alfredo, and Weeks, John. 2013. “Curses, Diseases and Other Resource Confusions.” Third World Quarterly 34 (1): 1–21.Google Scholar
Sæther, Bj⊘rner, Isaksen, Arne, and Karlsen, Asbj⊘rn. 2011. “Innovation by Co-Evolution in Natural Resource Industries: The Norwegian Experience.” Geoforum 42 (3): 373–381.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Suzana. 2002. “Bobbittizing Texaco: Dis-Membering Corporate Capital and Re-Membering the Nation in Ecuador.” Cultural Anthropology 17 (2): 150–180.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Suzana. 2007. “Empire/Multitude—State/Civil Society: Rethinking Topographies of Power Through Transnational Connectivity in Ecuador and Beyond.” Social Analysis 51 (2): 64–85.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Suzana. 2010. “Human Energy.” Dialectic Anthropology 34: 67–75. doi:10.1007/s10624-009-9122-9Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Basil-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sneath, David. 2003. “Lost in the Post: Technologies of Imagination, and the Soviet Legacy in Post-Socialist Mongolia.” Inner Asia 5 (1): 39–52.Google Scholar
Sneath, David. 2010. “Political Mobilization and the Construction of Collective Identity in Mongolia.” Central Asian Survey 29 (3): 251–267.Google Scholar
Sternberg, Troy. 2010. “Unravelling Mongolia's Extreme Winter Disaster of 2010.” Nomadic Peoples 14 (1): 72–86.Google Scholar
Sumiyabazar, Ch. 2009a. “Letter by Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe.” UB Post. 11 Aug. Accessed December 14, 2009. http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3408&Itemid=37 Google Scholar
Sumiyabazar, Ch. 2009b. “Letter by Mongolian Parliament.” UB Post. 11 Aug. Accessed December 14, 2009. http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3407&Itemid=37 Google Scholar
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tvalchrelidze, Alexander G. 2011. “Commodities and Information: Black Holes in the Information Sharing System.” In Philosophy and Synergy of Information, edited by Kervalishvili, P. J. and Michailidis, S. A., 144–153. Amsterdam: IOS Press.Google Scholar
United Nations. 2006. Mining and Human Rights in Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: Centre for Human Rights and Development.Google Scholar
Vivoda, Vlado. 2009. “Resource Nationalism, Bargaining and International Oil Companies: Challenges and Change in the New Millennium.” New Political Economy 14 (4): 517–534.Google Scholar
Virág, Attila. 2012. “The Cultural and Geopolitical Dimensions of Nation-Building in the Ukraine.” Society and Economy 34 (4): 619–641.Google Scholar
Walton, Grant, and Barnett, Jon. 2007. “The Ambiguities of ‘Environmental’ Conflict: Insights from the Tolukuma Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea.” Society and Natural Resources 21 (1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Watts, Michael J. 2004. “Antinomies of Community: Some Thoughts on Geography, Resources and Empire.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29 (2): 195–216.Google Scholar
Zalik, Anna. 2004. “The Niger Delta: ‘Petro Violence’ and ‘Partnership Development'.” Review of African Political Economy 31 (101): 401–424.Google Scholar
Zalik, Anna. 2008. “Liquefied Natural Gas and Fossil Capitalism.” Monthly Review 60 (6): 41–53.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Astrid E. 2012. “Local Leaders Between Obligation and Corruption: State Workplaces, the Discourse of ‘Moral Decay,’ and ‘Eating Money’ in the Mongolian Province.” In Change in Democratic Mongolia, edited by Dierkes, J., 83–109. Boston, MA: Brill.Google Scholar