Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/251263 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CITYPERC Working Paper No. 2021-06
Publisher: 
City, University of London, City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), London
Abstract: 
Extractive industries must be rapidly scaled down to achieve the decarbonisation targets and climate justice demanded by the imminent climate emergency. However, existing academic literature presenting alternatives to growth lack practical, implementable pathways to degrow extractive industries. One critical extractive industry is often overlooked: sand. This is despite it being a key extractive industry that various critical supply chains in the urban economy rely on. Unlike other non-renewables such as coal and oil, sand has no mainstream commercial alternative. Sand extraction and dredging result in critical ecosystem and livelihood losses that reproduce and entrench existing inequalities. This paper focusses on Singapore - currently the world's largest importer of sand. I will present my findings from interviewing critical proponents and opponents to Singapore's use of sand in the country's quest to reclaim land. These different scripts people hold on sand validate and legitimise sand extraction for land reclamation and how they might reproduce inequalities. Scripts developing around extractives are critical in pathways to scaling down extractives. In this essay, I argue that three scripts related to sand - scripts of growth, mutual benefit and silence - present critical barriers to scaling down Singapore's sand demand. Resistors of these scripts are beginning to question specific elements within these scripts to question their dominance and hegemony. I also offer what scripts of hope in the case of sand in Southeast Asia can look like in achieving environmental and social justice, and explore the implications of these findings to alternatives-to-growth literature.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.