Post-frontier Resource Governance

The author presents an anthropological analysis of the regulatory technologies that characterize contemporary resource frontiers. He offers an ethnographic portrayal of indigenous rights, resource extraction and environmental politics in the Peruvian Amazon.

“Larsen’s book focuses on the Ceja de Selva, or high rainforest of central Peru, and its move in recent decades to what he categorizes as ‘the post-frontier’. … Larsen aims to bring out the complexity and contradictions of this situation, a task he accomplishes very effectively. … an important piece of work, elucidating as it does the contemporary reality of an indigenous people that has implications beyond the Peruvian context.” (Evan Killick, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 22 (3), September, 2016)

Peter Bille Larsen is Lecturer of Anthropology, Development and International Governance at the universities of Lucerne and Lausanne, Switzerland. Primary fieldwork sites include the Peruvian Amazon, Viet Nam and global level processes. He has worked extensively with international organizations, NGOs and community-based organizations seeking to deepen anthropological analysis of institutions and practices.