Joel Wainwright

Here, Jakub Majmurek interviews Joel Wainwright about the geopolitics of climate change

Environmental and agrarian changes are proceeding rapidly in southern Belize. Despite common recognition of these changes, little research has attempted to examine the class processes involved in social and environmental change. We trace how capitalism has transformed household reproduction over the past four decades, focusing on two key pathways by which these changes unfold: the commercialization of land use and the education of the labour force. Emerging class processes in the Maya communities undermine subsistence agriculture, generate inequality between households and genders, and magnify conflicts over land. These effects complicate struggles for communal land rights and class solidarity.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese state/capitalist programme of transnational infrastructure construction initiated in 2013. Between 2013 and 2016, Chinese banks extended hundreds of billions of dollars –principally across Asia, but also Europe and Africa – for transportation and energy networks. Recently released statistics, however, suggest that project lending for the BRI collapsed from 2016 onwards. Our paper examines the reasons for this contraction through a case-study of the BRI in Africa. We contend that the lending contraction resulted from political and economic contradictions generated by this form of international interconnection, including the types of debt traps it helped create. This outcome is explained partly by the fact that the BRI is simultaneously a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. Whereas the balance of economic risks is arguably skewed against borrowers (in some cases leading to debt traps), from a geopolitical perspective, the Chinese state also seeks to expand influence in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. This creates counter-pressure on further expansion of such financing, which, complemented by domestic economic implications of loan failure, helps to explain the contraction.

The former British colony of Belize faces serious economic problems today, reflecting a collapse in tourism following COVID-19. To account for this fragility, a return to economic history is needed. We focus on two critical periods. First, we examine why the Belizean state was unable to form a developmental state in the period of the anticolonial movement and self-government (the 1950s–1960s). Particular attention is given to George Price, leader of the anti-colonial People’s United Party (PUP) and ‘father of the country’. Second, turning to the post-colonial period, we examine one experimental chapter that lasted roughly a decade (1998–2007) when a coherent state-led economic strategy was pursued. During both periods the PUP-led state sought to reorganize development strategy along progressive lines, but failed to deliver. Because capital was almost completely foreign dominated, the fledgling Belizean developmental state could not discipline capital toward developmental alignment.

In mid-2020, the movement for Black liberation reached a new stage after the murder of George Floyd generated unprecedented urban protests against racial injustice. Two years on, these appeals have not translated into widespread policy change. We analyze the movement’s relationship to the U.S. state, focusing on state surveillance of the movement. To grasp this, we consider four distinct but intersecting historical processes: first, the long-standing repression of Black people by the U.S.; second, a political shift in the management of urban protest after September 11, 2001; third, the rapid enhancement of technological means for surveillance; and fourth, the emergence of an evolved political form of authoritarianism since ca. 2009. The political economic conjuncture of these processes is not conducive to the movement for Black lives. This movement, and the campaign to reduce state surveillance, are therefore interdependent struggles for collective liberation.

This is a reply to the commentaries on a critique of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Geography and Military Study Committee Report. We discuss the recent changes to the AAG Statement of Professional Ethics, focusing on two new passages concerning the involvement of the military in geographical research. We conclude with four actionable suggestions for the AAG.

Like indigenous peoples across the hemisphere, the Maya of southern Belize have long struggled to decolonize their ancestral lands. For over four decades, the ‘Maya movement’ has clashed with the state, yielding mixed results. After a series of favorable court decisions, the Maya communities have won legal claim to their lands. However, the government of Belize has not substantively addressed this decision, and the rural Maya communities of Toledo remain the poorest in the country. This paper analyses one exceptional period, 1997–2004, when the Maya movement aligned itself with progressive state leaders to advance a set of goals, including but not limited to land rights. I argue that a combination of factors made the 1997–2004 conjuncture decisive for shaping present conditions in Toledo.