A while back, I reviewed and presented a summary of Diamond Wars? Conflict Diamonds and Geographies of Resource Wars by Philippe Le Billon.  The researcher is from from the Geography Department at the University of British Columbia.

My summary was in presentation form.  I was active in our local Toastmaster's club at the time, and it was one of the topics I chose for my speech.  Funny, preparing for that speech made me want to go back into research.  Specifically, research in social and political geography.  I even went so far as to contact and meet with a professor at our local university.  Alas, I chose to stay out in the 'real' world for another few years and my PhD aspirations have been put on hold.

However, I thought that as that article inspired me to think about doing great things, maybe it will inspire others.  Take a gander at the abstract link above.

For those of us in relatively stable western societies, we often find it hard to comprehend the things that lead to such degradable circumstances in less fortunate counties.  In his article, Billon lays out the basis for these circumstances.  He links concepts such as vulnerability to what is termed the resource curse: the fact that countries often rich is resources remain the poorest.  He clearly links the resource curse to the degree of vulnerability the target population has to a variety of pressures (i.e. lack of democracy, policy capture by special interests, higher levels of corruption, etc.).

He goes on to link resource conflicts to the degree of risk as well as conflict resources (i.e., diamonds) as providing the opportunity.  He also maps out the spaces along the corrupt commodity chain and how artisan mining plays into not only empowering the local population but the local thugs as well.

Billon concludes that we need to broaden our definitions of violence in order to truly capture all the forces that play into resource conflicts and that the geographies of exploitation ultimately shape the post-conflict spaces of legitimacy and criminality.

Interesting stuff.  Go check it out.