8 th Euroseas conference Vienna, 11–14 August 2015

part of the previous century as technologically crude, environmentally destructive, unhealthy and unsafe for humans, 
and contributing marginally to national economies, small scale mining is suddenly gaining new adherents and sup-
porters, surprisingly among traditional opponents – e.g., indigenous peoples (IPs), environmentalists, community 
development-oriented non-government organizations (NGOs), and even foreign investors.
The proposed panel will essentially look into the reconsideration of SSM as a viable primary source of livelihood 
in present-day communities in Southeast Asia. The viability of its promotion as a policy of existing governments in 
Southeast Asia - vis-à-vis large scale mining - will also be examined. SSM’s viability and acceptability in SEA as com-
munity practice and state policy will be scrutinized in terms of its economic, political, legal, social, cultural, histori-
cal, health, and ecological dimensions. In view of the long-standing arguments against small scale mining, it is quite 
urgent for SEA scholars to pay attention to this emerging trend.
— Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Philippines: The Way to Go? 
Alejandro Jr. Ciencia (University of the Philippines Baguio)
Artisanal and small-scale gold (ASGM) mining is a complex and multifaceted issue - oftentimes divisive - in a number 
of countries and communities all over the globe. On a very general level, support for ASGM is anchored on the right of 
local communities, households, and individuals to engage in livelihood activities to provide for their economic needs. 
Opposition to ASGM, meanwhile, is generally premised on its negative effects, primarily on the state of the physical 
environment and the health of people practicing ASGM or living in or near ASGM areas. The paper offers a cursory 
look at the history of ASGM in the country and an analysis of how past national administrations have regarded the 
sector. It will also look into the considerations that will shape the prospects of ASGM becoming a driver of sustainable 
economic development in the country. The paper will examine the possibility of ASGM becoming a favored sector 
of the economy for policymakers and other stakeholders, including local communities, in light of reported advances 
in mining technology, fairly recent scientific studies, and lessons learned from the experiences of other countries 
and communities. The paper addresses the following questions: (1) Has there been a shift in the general attitude of 

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policymakers and other stakeholders in the Philippines towards ASGM?; (2) What is the current general attitude of 
policymakers and other stakeholders towards ASGM?; and, (3) What factors can account for the prevailing general 
attitude towards ASGM? The paper argues that indeed one can observe a change in the way stakeholders have over the 
years regarded artisanal and small-scale mining. While Philippine administrations have generally exhibited antipathy 
towards ASGM, non-governmental organizations and international governmental organizations have through the 
years become more sympathetic to the sector. A number of factors may account for this development particularly in 
the case of the Philippines. These are: (a) the growing economic significance of ASGM to the entire mining industry; 
(b) recognition that large-scale mining is not as reliably safe and profitable as it was thought to be; (c) international 
recognition and sympathy for ASGM; and (d) technological developments that have the potential of making ASGM 
safer and more responsible.
— Scale Economies and Value Chain Analysis for Gold: A Case of Small Scale Mining in Northern Philippines
Santos Jose III Dacanay (University of the Philippines Baguio), Corazon L. Abansi (University of the Philippines Ba-
guio)
The paper presents small scale mining (SSM) in Northern Philippines as  a case as gold undergoes a fascinating trans-
formation from a seam in the ground to the hands of the consumer—as jewelry, part of an everyday product like a 
mobile phone or medical device, or as an investment. During this journey, the conversion is tracked and analyzed 
using the value chain approach—from an unprocessed ore and almost indistinguishable from a worthless rock—to a 
pure, valuable metal recognized the world over for its intrinsic value and cultural significance. The paper traces the 
legal definitions of SSM and tests the practice of mining in the study area on whether these follow legal and technical 
criteria and conditions. The paper likewise presents the contributions and correlates of mining-related and macroeco-
nomic variables as context of the value chain analysis. Though subject to sustainability issues and debate, stakeholders 
acknowledged the SSM sector’s critical contribution as a source of subsistence livelihood of the people as well as an 
important marker of the people’s identity, culture and tradition.
— Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASG) in Southeast Asia and Some Environmental Impacts
Ofelia Giron (University of the Philippines Baguio)
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) activities in Southeast Asia are flourishing and are tremendously promoting 
cash-strapped economies and poverty-stricken families in a lot of areas in the region. Indonesia is at the forefront in 
mining developments in general and in ASM in particular, as it has been listed in 2002 by the World Bank and the 
International Finance Corporation as one of the 51 “mining countries” in the developing world. This recognition is 
based on economic data that mining is relevant in Indonesia as it contributes to the country’s exports by around 5% 
to 15%. Mining industry, both large-scale and ASM, is likewise considered one of the top dollar earners of the Philip-
pines. Based on a 2012 study, there are an estimated 500,000 ASM workers operating in more than 30 provinces of the 
country. The exploitation of Cambodia’s mineral resources was limited to small-scale mining in the late ‘90s although 
the Cambodian government has now veered towards local and foreign investment projects in large-scale mining. A 
2009 report show that the Myanmar Ministry of Mines issued 1119 permits for small-scale mining out of 1763 permits 
that were issued for its mining industry. Myanmar’s large stock of unexplored metals and soft commodities has posi-
tioned the country as an emerging mining country in Southeast Asia and although its government is open to foreign 
investments it strictly requires that all forms of mining investments be aligned with the country’s environmental and 
social goals.
The aforementioned statistics may point to the economic viability of ASM but concerns as to whether ASM may 
hinder or benefit a developing country in its quest for economic growth and prosperity is now giving rise to a lot of 
research. Ongoing studies are not limited to how extensive mining activities impact Southeast Asia economies and 
resources but an increasing number of these studies is focused on the impacts of intensive ASM activities on the en-
vironment. Much of the research findings show extreme and sometimes irreversible environmental destruction that 
endanger the health and livelihood of mining and nearby communities. There is an increasing concern that ASM ac-
tivities maybe worse in the intensity of environmental pollution even if large-scale concessions generate pollution to a 
higher degree because of their size owing to the perceived near total lack of environmental regulations or the disregard 
for such regulations by ASM operators and workers.
Recommendations for improving social and environmental framework in support of a sustainable and responsible 

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ASM by environmentalists and health authorities include establishing a ‘school’for ASM workers that will provide 
short courses on mine safety, health hazards and other ASM-related matters; providing professional and technical as-
sistance to ASM communities in assessing the viability of ASM in relation to other options; setting up a mechanism 
for recognition and appreciation for locally developed mining methods that do not employ mercury and other chemi-
cals; providing trainings on mine waste and mine tailings management and rehabilitation of the mining site.
Panel: Analyzing Socio-Ecological Conflicts from a Political Ecology Perspective 
conveners: Alina Brad (University of Vienna), Melanie Pichler (University of Vienna)
panel abstract
Along with selective industrialization processes in Southeast Asian countries, the extraction and control of natural 
resources and environmental assets play a pivotal role for economic growth and export-oriented development in the 
region. At the same time, Southeast Asian countries increasingly face the environmental and social costs of resource-
based development (e.g. deforestation, water pollution, flooding, biodiversity loss, eviction of indigenous peoples or 
ethnic minorities, growing percentage of urban poor etc.) that give rise to increasing resistance against these forms of 
economic development.
The panel welcomes contributions that deal with these emerging socio-ecological conflicts from a political ecology 
perspective. Rather than conceiving of environmental problems as external costs that can be dealt with technical 
measures, the interdisciplinary research area of political ecology highlights the political, economic, and socio-cultural 
configurations that shape the human-environmental relations and the unequal distribution of environmental and 
social costs and benefits as well as asymmetrical power relations that give rise to resistance, culminating in socio-
ecological conflicts. Apart from more ‘traditional’ conflicts arising around the extraction and control of key natural 
resources (e.g. land, mining, water), we welcome contributions that discuss ‘new’ conflicts that emerge from the very 
policies and measures to deal with the environmental costs of industrialization and economic growth (e.g. conflicts 
over conservation areas, payment for ecosystem schemes like REDD+, biofuel development). ‘Traditional’ and ‘new’ 
socio-ecological conflicts may involve localized conflicts in specific Southeast Asian countries as well as transnational 
campaigns, contestations at the supranational (e.g. ASEAN) scale or nationwide protests. Besides the analysis and 
systematization of conflict dynamics, we welcome paper submissions that deal with alternative and plural visions of 
managing natural resources and protecting the environment (e.g. indigenous control of resources, nationalization, 
commons, environmental justice).
— Changing Discouses on Environment and Nature in Vietnam 
Julia Behrens (Humboldt University)
The paper discusses the Vietnamese discourse on environment and nature and its changes through imperialism from 
the kingdom of V?n Lang until today. It argues that the indigenous understanding in Vietnam was shaped by a two 
dimensional relation between humans and nature and environment. Firstly, environment was seen as something to 
be used in order to produce food and a living and therefore had a material relevance. Secondly, nature was seen as 
something holy, possessed by spirits who were worshipped and fulfilled spiritual needs. This twofold understanding, 
which is a continuum rather than two separated concepts, lost its balance through imperialist influences and the ma-
terialistic notion of environment was strengthened. The first influence, Chinese Confucianism, brought with it a more 
profound separation between humans and their environment with. This influence, however, was not as strong for the 
subalterns (following the tradition of Gramsci and Guha) as for the ruling elite. It was French imperialism and the 
change of agricultural structures that lay the basis for a deep discourse change from spiritual nature to an environment 
that had to serve economic ends. This was picked up and spread among the mass population by the socialist govern-
ment in independent Vietnam. The process culminates in today’s adaption of the western eco-imperialist discourse 
that settled the story-lines of environmental realism and neo-liberalism in Vietnamese policies and the environmental 
movement. Despite losing the balance between nature and environment, parts of both still do exist as one can see in 
Vietnamese policy papers and online publications by local non-governmental organizations.

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— (Towards a) Political Ecology of Coal Mining in East Kalimantan
Anna Fünfgeld (University of Freiburg)
Conflicts over nature that stem from the extraction of natural resources are currently on the rise in many parts of the 
world. In Indonesia, a country particularly rich in natural resources, coal mining constitutes one of the economic 
fields with profound impact upon environmental and societal change. Especially during the last decade coal produc-
tion and export have been remarkably expanded, leading to the fact that Indonesia is currently the world’s largest 
exporter of thermal coal.
While about three quarters of total coal production are being exported, thereby profiting the international coal market 
and creating an important source of revenues for the Indonesian state, the local mining areas suffer from negative ef-
fects on the environment and local livelihoods. In Indonesia, the biggest amount of coal extraction is conducted via 
open-cast mining in the provinces of Kalimantan.
The paper investigates the social, ecological, and political dynamics associated with coal mining in the municipal area 
of Samarinda, the capital of East Kalimantan. Especially in the city’s rural outskirts, local livelihoods have changed 
dramatically due to the presence of coal industries. As a reaction to this situation, local resistance movements mainly 
consisting of farmers, environmental activists, and the academia have arisen.
The paper will focus on the political implications of the struggles over access to and distribution of natural resources. 
It will be analyzed to what extent and how fundamental aspects of ‘stateness’ are constantly being negotiated and re-
negotiated amongst various actors involved in this particular conflict. Furthermore, the case study also reveals that 
perspectives on the state as a unitary and static unit with specific sets of characteristics cannot hold true. Rather, as 
this paper argues ‘stateness’ has to be redefined as a concept shaped by constant negotiations, which can be accessed 
through actors’ practices as well as through the images of the state to which they refer. Moreover, ‘nature’ - understood 
as a social construction and a set of physical-material aspects alike - influences one of the very basic entities of today’s 
political communities, namely the state.
— The Art of Not Being “Freshened”: The Hydrogeography of Resistance to Salinity Control in Vietnam’s Me-
kong Delta
Timothy Gorman (Cornell University)
Saline intrusion is a natural feature of the Mekong River Delta’s estuarine hydrology. High tides push seawater up the 
mouth of the river and into the network of irrigation canals that crosshatch the delta, reaching maximum intensity 
and extent during the winter-spring dry season. Because salt adversely affects rice, the country’s staple crop, the gov-
ernment of Vietnam has over the past two decades invested heavily in salinity control infrastructure, building massive 
metal and concrete sluice gates across rivers and canals to block the flow of the tides. These efforts have redoubled in 
recent years, due to concerns over sea-level rise and its impact on Vietnam’s long-term food security, and as a result 
large swathes of the coastal Mekong Delta are now ringed with sluice gates and designated as “vùng ng?t hóa,” or 
“freshened areas.” Not everyone, however, wants to live in a freshened zone. While rice production may contribute to 
the food security of the nation, the farming of saltwater shrimp often provides a far more lucrative option for indi-
vidual households. Rather than abandon saltwater aquaculture for intensive rice farming - as envisioned on the land-
use maps of state planners - many people in these areas have instead resisted the government’s salinity control efforts. 
This paper presents a comparative case study of resistance to salinity control in two Mekong Delta provinces, Bac 
Lieu and Ben Tre, drawing on ethnographic research and secondary accounts to argue that the nature of resistance in 
these two areas is strongly inflected by a single difference in their hydrogeography: whereas groundwater in Bac Lieu 
is fresh, in Ben Tre it is saline. In Bac Lieu, the gates thus served as effective nodes of environmental control, cutting 
farmers off from access to salt water. Here, resistance focused on these infrastructures of control, culminating in large, 
well-organized public protests in which demonstrators attempted to physically breach the gates, ultimately prompting 
authorities to open them and to re-expose the area to saline flows. In Ben Tre, however, the means of environmental 
control are more decentralized and the mode of resistance more individual and covert. There, farmers have simply 
pumped saline groundwater into their ponds, undermining the state’s efforts at top-down water management and 
prompting an escalating attempt by local authorities to discover and destroy “illegal” wells.

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— Sumatra’s Oil Palm Frontier in the REDD - The Politics of Scale of Land Conflicts 
Jonas Hein (German Development Institute), Yvonne Kunz (University of Göttingen)
In Indonesia and all over the world, frontiers had been constructed as “empty spaces” (Fold and Hirsch 2009: 95) that 
ignored the presence of local communities and their customary forms of using and governing forests and land. The re-
cent expansion of protected areas and oil palm plantations in the Indonesian REDD+ pilot province Jambi (Sumatra), 
has been notably disruptive and violent. This article investigates the politics of scale of land conflicts at Jambi’s oil palm 
frontier involving indigenous groups, frontier migrants, state forest agencies, NGOs and conservation companies.
We built upon multi-sited qualitative research focusing on struggles related to the formation of informal settlements 
within protected areas and REDD+ demonstration activities. We followed the transnational networks established by 
different actors involved in, or impacted by, REDD+ and conservation initiatives.
 Results indicate that, especially in the context of rapid rescaling (e.g., decentralization and democratization), new 
power constellations emerge, thereby altering preexistent property relations. The conflicts at Jambi’s oil palm frontier 
show that conflicts over access and control of forests are increasingly influenced by transnational governance arrange-
ments for mitigating climate change. The emergence of REDD+ leads to a new global scale of forest and land tenure 
governance, which leads to a new dialectical relationships between structure and agency. Consequently, REDD+ ne-
gotiations provide a voice for marginalized actors (e.g., protests at climate conferences) and – at least theoretically 
– new legal opportunities (e.g., Cancun Safeguards), which marginalized actors, with the support of transnational 
activists, might increasingly use in the future to defend their property.
— Conflict and Commodification of Water: Political Ecology of Bottled Water Industries in Indonesia
Yosafat Hermawan Trinugraha (University of Innsbruck), Martin Coy (University of Innsbruck)
The phenomenon of the bottled water industry in Indonesia is probably not a new phenomenon, but it seemed to be a 
trend and increased production since last 10 years. Bottled water seems to be the main alternative when the state failed 
to establish a public drinking water supply system in Indonesia. Some forms of water privatization with the takeover 
of several local water companies by multi national companies, in some literature also considered as a failure. In such 
situations, the production of bottled water (especially mineral water) becomes more expansive. Some Multinational 
Companies as Danone has been operating in Indonesia for more than 10 years ago. In some locations the water exploi-
tation process raises some resistance and conflicts with local people. This paper will examine how the process exploita-
tion of bottled water lead to resistance and conflict with the local people, especially farmers as irrigation water users. 
It also explains who the actors involved in the conflict. By taking research area in the district of Klaten, Central Java, 
Indonesia, and with the background of the regional autonomy policy in Indonesia since 1999, this paper will examine 
how water conflicts have involved a growing number of actors, like other local governments, local and multinational 
companies
— Typhoon Washi and Disputations between Urban Poor and City Government in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines 
Luzile Mae Satur (Passau University)
Following the concept of “Legitimation Crisis” developed by Habermas, this study deals with socio-ecological con-
flicts resulting from inefficient implementation of socialized housing policies for the urban poor in the Southeast 
Asian City of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. The city government enacted the “Piso-Piso Resettlement Program” to 
provide dwellings for the landless and homeless populace. Consequently, housing projects were built and occupied in 
areas deemed not suitable for settlement. When typhoon Washi hit the city in December 2011, the main victims were 
mostly from these places. Social housing welfare is evidently deficient; however, the city government allowed margin-
alized residents to settle in disaster prone areas. In spite of that, there was no resistance coming from the urban poor. 
The resistance only occurred after the effects of the typhoon were encountered. This paper analyses the non-resistance 
of the urban poor preceding the disaster and their reaction following the disaster. Further, it examines the policies 
of the city government and its reaction to the demands of the urban poor.! Methodology consists of data from city 
government as well as reports from local and national media. Scope of analysis includes the association of the urban 
poor and the affected areas, namely, the Poblacion (Central Business District) and the Barangays (sub districts) of 
Macasandig, Canitoan and Macanhan.

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— Ethnicity and Natural Resource Governance in Myanmar 
Adam Simpson (University of South Australia)
Environmental movements in the Global South predominantly focus on livelihood concerns, with a core interest in 
community access to natural resources. Ownership of these resources can, however, be contested, often along ethnic 
lines. In Myanmar, the competition over resources has been exacerbated by decades of ethnic civil conflict between 
the Myanmar government and the minorities who populate its resource-rich mountainous borderlands. National 
attempts at peacebuilding between the new government and the various ethnic minorities have been intimately in-
tertwined with the division of natural resources, with ethnic minorities arguing for the local ownership of resources. 
The distribution of resources based on ethnicities can, however, create further injustices, particularly when ethnic 
minorities are not recognised, as has occurred for the Muslim Rohingya in gas-rich and predominantly Buddhist 
Rakhine (Arakan) State. Political reforms since 2011 have opened political space for civil society but have also re-
sulted in widespread ethnic chauvinism. The challenge for local emancipatory environmental movements promoting 
environmental justice is to recognise, and transcend, this ethnic divide. To assist in the process of natural resource 
governance, the government applied for membership of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI); in 
July 2014 it was accepted as a candidate country. This paper analyses the complex ethnic issues that face environmen-
tal movements in Myanmar and examines how the EITI, an internationally driven governance process, may assist, or 
hinder, the promotion of equitable and participatory natural resource governance in the country.