Extracting Honduras: Resource Exploitation, Displacement, and Forced Migration

James J. Phillips

doi:10.5771/9781793630346

Summary

With a focus on Honduras, James J. Phillips explores the deeper causes of the massive emigration of Central Americans to the United States. Going beyond the frequently given reasons for migration, Phillips provides a detailed account of how the frenzied extraction of natural resources has created massive community displacement, dependency, poverty, and vulnerability, while encouraging corruption, violence, gang recruitment, drug trafficking, militarization of Honduran society, and systematic repression of popular protest and resistance.

Highlighting how this situation is tied to the colonial (or imperial) extractive relationship of Honduras to the United States, Phillips contends that the usual policy of development aid and investment to stem migration will only worsen the conditions that create migration. With this book, Phillips depicts how the Central American immigration “crisis” shapes life in the United States and Honduras, while making clear that the effects are not what populist politics imagine.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2022
Copyright Year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-3033-9
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-3034-6
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 262
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Mapping the Terrain No access Pages 1 - 24
Latin American Immigration and the United States No access Pages 25 - 56
Imperialism, Development, and Honduras No access Pages 57 - 84
Migration, Development, and Honduras No access Pages 85 - 110
Evolution of the Honduran Political Economy No access Pages 111 - 126
Characteristics and Consequences of Neoextractive Development in Honduras No access Pages 127 - 162
The Militarization of Honduras, Emigration, and the United States No access Pages 163 - 190
Migration and the Human Spirit No access Pages 191 - 220
Reflecting on the Journey No access Pages 221 - 228
Bibliography No access Pages 229 - 252
Index No access Pages 253 - 260
About the Author No access Pages 261 - 262