Dr Jonathan K Gamu

Broadly, my research scrutinizes the intersection of corporate power, market-based modes of natural resource management, and the environmental politics of violence in the global South. Specifically, I am interested in understanding how new and emerging modes of transnational environmental and conflict governance, including corporate social responsibility, supply chains, and multi-stakeholder initiatives, are affecting the dynamics of contentious resource politics in peripheral local spaces.

To date, most of my empirical research has focused on the global extractive industries sector, analyzing how multinational mining corporations are utilizing community engagement and sustainability programming to shape and manage diverse mobilizations “from below.” I use political economy as a lens for understanding how the structures and institutions that promote and manage the globalization of the economy are legitimizing corporations and markets as agents of governance, who also, problematically, manage the social and environmental impacts of production.

While my work is housed within disciplinary subfields of international relations, global environmental politics, and international political economy, whenever possible, I aim to draw upon in-country or local-level fieldwork to place into sharper focus the tensions and ambiguities between global and local.