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Diamond Wars? Conflict Diamonds and Geographies of Resource Wars

In the late 1990s, natural resources such as oil, diamonds, and timber came under increased scrutiny by conflict analysts and media outlets for their purported role in many contemporary wars. This article discusses some of the limitations of conventional arguments linking wars and resources. Dominated by econometric approaches and rational choice theory interpretations, arguments pertaining to “resource wars” often oversimplify or overlook the geographical dimensions of resource-related conflicts. By defining spatiality primarily in terms of the location of resource reserves and flows generating revenues for belligerents, these approaches overlook other geographical aspects of resources crucial to conflicts. Focusing on “conflict diamonds” and drawing on recent international relations works and geographical research on the political ecology of violence, commodity chains, and consumption, the article presents an alternative conceptual framework engaging with resource-related spaces of vulnerability, risk, and opportunity for conflicts. This framework, in turn, highlights policy biases resulting from oversimplified readings of “resource war” geographies.