Title: Derivative States

Speaker: Randi Irwin (The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Australia)

Date: Friday, 29 October 2021

Time: 1-2:30 pm

Mode: Online via Zoom

Meeting ID: 916 1594 7708

Passcode: 759346

Abstract:

In the absence of clear territorial rights and the formal recognition of sovereignty in Western Sahara, the Saharawi state appears to be a government absent a physical state, and yet prepared for the possibility that it might one day exercise its craft. The state-in-exile governs from the refugee camps, but does not have full access to, or control over, its territory and resources. However, the state-in-exile may have more control over its territory than is immediately recognized! This talk will explore how Saharawi government officials have worked to actively construct Saharawi territory and sovereignty in a way that enables the future state’s property to be used in the meantime. While the conflict over Western Sahara’s future is commonly referred to as a stalemate, this talk explores how Saharawi-led natural resource contracts have been used as a preparatory tool for the assertion of sovereignty by making property in the contemporary moment. This talk will tell the story of the implementation of these two forms of contracts (deferred and currently actionable) in order to consider how their different temporal orientations create new possibilities for the state and its citizens in exile.

Bio:

Dr. Randi Irwin is a Sessional Lecturer in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Newcastle. Her primary research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), focuses on the political, legal, and financial contestation over natural resource ownership and decolonization in Western Sahara. Her work has recently been published in London Review of International Law and the Journal of North African Studies. Randi is a board member of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.