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Imagining the mineral nation: contested nation-building in Mongolia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sara L. Jackson
Sara L. Jackson*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, York University, N430 Ross Building, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON, Canada M3 J 1P3
*
*Email: sarajack@yorku.ca
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Abstract

The development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine, located in Mongolia's South Gobi province, promises to rebuild the nation after two decades of economic and social instabilities following the 1990 revolution. While the company promotes the mine as the teleological solution to Mongolia's development, the state and public remain ambivalent, as concerns about a resource curse and Dutch Disease loom. In this paper, I argue that Oyu Tolgoi remains contested due to tensions between corporate and state actors as well as public concerns about the potential negative political, economic, and environmental effects of mining. Debates over the Oyu Tolgoi investment agreement negotiations and the immediate repercussions of the agreement signing reveal how the dual teleologies of building mineral nations crystallize in the neologism “Mine-golia.” This paper begins to fill a gap in the literature on mineral nations which privileges the role of the state, leaving how corporations engage in nation-building underexamined.

Keywords

nation-buildingresource curseDutch DiseaseMongolia“Mine-golia”
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , May 2015 , pp. 437 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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