Extracting Honduras: Resource Exploitation, Displacement, and Forced Migration

(Hardback)

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Description

With a focus on Honduras, James J. Phillips explores the deeper causes of the massive emigration of Central Americans to the United States. Going beyond the frequently given reasons for migration, Phillips provides a detailed account of how the frenzied extraction of natural resources has created massive community displacement, dependency, poverty, and vulnerability, while encouraging corruption, violence, gang recruitment, drug trafficking, militarization of Honduran society, and systematic repression of popular protest and resistance.

Highlighting how this situation is tied to the colonial (or imperial) extractive relationship of Honduras to the United States, Phillips contends that the usual policy of development aid and investment to stem migration will only worsen the conditions that create migration. With this book, Phillips depicts how the Central American immigration crisis shapes life in the United States and Honduras, while making clear that the effects are not what populist politics imagine.

Reviews

In order to understand the immigration crisis at the southern border of the United States, it is imperative to understand why someone would want to leave their homeland. This important new book explores the roots of that crisis, and situates it in extractive economies and militarized societies. Anthropologist Phillips is not content to leave this story on the level of what is wrong and so includes reflections on how to solve the extreme human rights abuses that drive immigration from Honduras. This book is critical for understanding how we can move forward to create a more just and peaceful world.

-- Marc Becker, Truman State University

Honduras is a major originating country for current immigrants. Everyone who wants to understand the real causes of this migration should read this book. While gang violence is well-known, global mining and logging are less well-known, yet crucial, as is the US-supported Honduran government militarization used to implement them.

-- Josiah Heyman, University of Texas at El Paso

This exactly the book we need to understand the realities behind the news we read about Honduras. Vividly connects past to present and shows how different forms of extractive development have contributed to the poverty, corruption and violence that are spurring todays migration. The author has a deep knowledge of Honduras and its history and situates the country clearly in its global context.

-- Aviva Chomsky, Salem State University

Simply the best book I have read in many, many a year. Beautifully written, this deeply immersive, fully-substantiated account of the shaping and making of the failed Honduran state and relative role of the United States absolutely conveys the remarkable resilience of the Honduran people. James J. Phillips Extracting Honduras educates, inspires, and demands to be read again and again.

-- Barbara Rose Johnston, Michigan State University

Author Bio

James Phillips is a retired professor of anthropology and international studies at Southern Oregon University.