Professor Omolade Adunbi recently spoke with Miriam Driessen of Global China Pulse regarding his recent book and research on Nigeria's special economic zones and their impact on local communities.
"What are the social costs of extraction? And how does extraction reconfigure traditional power structures and cultural practices? In Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic Zones and Extractive Practices in Nigeria (Indiana University Press, 2022), Omolade Adunbi compares the extraction of economic value through free-trade zones (FTZs) with the extraction of oil by artisanal refineries to offer insight into the drastic—and at times dire—consequences of Nigeria’s insertion in the global economy. Taking the reader from two Chinese-run FTZs—Ogun-Guangdong FTZ and Lekki FTZ—to the communities which live nearby and into the forests and creeks of the Niger Delta, the book reveals how the production of value coincides with dispossession and the subsequent recapture of value."
