Our researcher, Dr. Luíza Cerioli, has recently published an article in the Territory, Politics and Governance Journal, a leading Q1 journal in political science and geography. The paper is titled: ‘But we are a rich nation!’: the persistent extractivist development myth in Algeria and Venezuela”. The article draws on extensive fieldwork conducted in both countries, funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR).
The study traces a long historical trajectory of hydrocarbon exploitation to conceptualize the extractivist development myth as a shared social imaginary, an enduring and adaptable belief that links resource abundance to socio-economic progress. It demonstrates how this myth has played a central role in legitimizing state authority, shaping policymaking, and structuring public expectations across very different political, cultural, and social contexts.
Abstract: The global push for decarbonisation has intensified demand for critical raw materials, reinforcing long-standing narratives in the Global South that natural wealth guarantees national growth and development. This article conceptualises the extractivist development myth, an enduring, adaptable belief linking resource abundance to socio-economic gains and progress, and examines its operationalisation in Algeria and Venezuela. Based on fieldwork and through a transregional political economy approach, it shows how the myth has legitimised state authority, policymaking and public expectations. Despite constant diversification rhetoric, extractivist logics persist and are now reframed around ‘green’ resources. The article highlights, therefore, how national imaginaries sustain extractivist models, entrenching uneven development amid the energy transition
You can access the paper with open access here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2026.2641057?scroll=top&needAccess=true#abstract
Cerioli, L. (2026). ‘But we are a rich nation!’: the persistent extractivist development myth in Algeria and Venezuela. Territory, Politics, Governance, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2026.2641057
