The project seeks to answer the following questions:
- What historical factors have led to incursions?
- What are the motivations and experiences of those who engage in incursion economies?
- What social and technical arrangements underpin incursions?
- How do incursion economies intersect?
By addressing these questions, the project will map both the human and environmental impacts of incursions and offer new tools to better grasp the often-overlooked phenomenon of small-scale extraction and its global consequences.
The project’s scope is both broad and interdisciplinary, integrating anthropology, environmental science, and social policy to provide a holistic view of how these incursions thrive. By studying the social, legal, technical, and ecological aspects of these extractive activities, INFRACURSIONS aims to understand how informal networks, local expertise, and ‘fluid infrastructures’—such as unofficial transport systems, resource smuggling, and improvised utilities—keep these economies running, even in remote and often hostile environments.
Taking a deep dive into the lived experiences of those engaged in deforestation and illegal extraction, INFRACURSIONS aims to provide the first extensive ethnographic review of the drivers of environmental destruction from the inside out.