Examen de cette géopolitique selon différents niveaux d'analyse spatiale, du plan mondial au niveau nigérian, via l'échelon continental africain, puis celui du golfe de Guinée. Un rappel des principales caractéristiques des marchés pétroliers et gaziers mondiaux et leur évolution récente explique l'intérêt croissant des pays importateurs et de leurs compagnies pétrolières et gazières pour l'Afrique en général et les pays du golfe de Guinée en particulier. On examinera aussi le renforcement de la présence des Etats-Unis et de la Chine en Afrique, le cas de certains pays pétroliers du Golfe de Guinée, leurs contentieux maritimes, les intérêts des compagnies pétrolières présentes, etc. Analyse approfondie de la situation des hydrocarbures au Nigeria : organisation du secteur, jeu des acteurs et examen détaillé des problématiques pétro-gazières amont et aval. Les caractéristiques du fédéralisme nigérian en rapport avec la rente pétrolière seront étudiées à partir des principes régissant la redistribution de la rente et leur impact au plan géopolitique et socio-économique. On analysera notamment les causes et les multiples conséquences de ce fédéralisme fiscal. L'examen des rapports et représentations entre les grandes ethnies nigérianes et les minorités du Delta montrera comment concrètement les conflits dans la région pétrolifère du Delta résultent à la fois du système politique et de ses pratiques, des lois pétrolières et usages en vigueur et du rôle respectif de très nombreux acteurs, dans un jeu de puissance et de domination entre groupes d'intérêt de nature et d'envergure très variable, qui tous recherchent un contrôle et / ou un accès aux retombées de la rente pétrolière.

Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world and one of the major suppliers of oil to the US. Set against a backdrop of what has been called the scramble for African oil, this text documents the consequences of a half-century of oil exploitation and production in one of the world's foremost centres of biodiversity.

Omolade Adunbi investigates the myths behind competing claims to oil wealth in Nigeria's Niger Delta. Looking at ownership of natural resources, oil extraction practices, government control over oil resources, and discourse about oil, Adunbi shows how symbolic claims have created an "oil citizenship." He explores the ways NGOs, militant groups, and community organizers invoke an ancestral promise to defend land disputes, justify disruptive actions, or organize against oil corporations. Policies to control the abundant resources have increased contestations over wealth, transformed the relationship of people to their environment, and produced unique forms of power, governance, and belonging.

We are told that Western/Christian and Muslim/Arab civilizations are heading towards inevitable conflict. The demographics of the West remain sluggish, while the population of the Muslim world explodes, widening the cultural gap and all but guaranteeing the outbreak of war. Leaving aside the media's sound and fury on this issue, measured analysis shows another reality taking shape: rapprochement between these two civilizations, benefiting from a universal movement with roots in the Enlightenment. The historical and geographical sweep of this book discredits the notion of a specific Islamic demography. The range of fertility among Muslim women, for example, is as varied as religious behavior among Muslims in general. Whether agnostics, fundamentalist Salafis, or al-Qaeda activists, Muslims are a diverse group that prove the variety and individuality of Islam. Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd consider different degrees of literacy, patriarchy, and defensive reactions among minority Muslim populations, underscoring the spread of massive secularization throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In this regard, they argue, there is very little to distinguish the evolution of Islam from the history of Christianity, especially with Muslims now entering a global modernity. Sensitive to demographic variables and their reflection of personal and social truths, Courbage and Todd upend a dangerous meme: that we live in a fractured world close to crisis, struggling with an epidemic of closed cultures and minds made different by religion.

"The Niger delta region of Nigeria which is at the heart of the country's oil industry, has a long history of struggles for self-determination dating back to the early years of the 20[superscript th] century. In the 1980s and 1990s, these struggles, unfolding as they did within the context of military authoritarianism and structural adjustment, took the form of widespread agitation for greater control by local communities of the revenues accruing to the Nigerian state from exploration and extraction of oil." "This study attempts to capture the transformations in ethnic minority identity politics in the oil-producing areas of the Niger delta. In doing this, attention is simultaneously drawn to the factors informing the shift from peaceful agitation to violent protest as well as the dynamic of decay and renewal in the various ethnic minority movements that are active in the delta. It is suggested that part of the solution to the crisis in the delta will involve not only a thorough-going restructuring of the Nigerian state but also the re-orientation of the mode of operation of the giant oil multinationals in order to make them both more sensitive and accountable to the local communities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In recent decades, gold mining has moved into increasingly remote corners of the globe. Aside from the expansion of industrial gold mining, many countries have simultaneously witnessed an expansion of labor-intensive and predominantly informal artisanal and small-scale gold mining. Both trends are usually studied in isolation, which contributes to a dominant image of a dual gold mining economy. Counteracting this dominant view, this volume adopts a global perspective, and demonstrates that both industrial gold mining and artisanal and small-scale gold mining are functionally integrated into a global gold production system. It couples an analysis of structural trends in global gold production (expansion, informalization, and technological innovation) to twelve country case studies that detail how global gold production becomes embedded in institutional and ecological structures.