Dr. Philippe Le Billon

Biography
Philippe Le Billon (MBA Paris, PhD Oxford) is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia with the Department of Geography and the Liu Institute for Global Issues. Before joining UBC, I was a Research Associate with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), with fieldwork in Angola, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and the former-Yugoslavia.

CV

Please click on this link to download a PDF copy of my CV.

Research Interests

My research interests include: political economy of war and reconstruction; geographies of violence; governance of extractive sectors; and corruption.

My research focus is on primary commoditie, conflicts and various forms of violence. Using a political ecology approach, I investigate the commodity networks linking spaces of exploitation, consumption and regulation. Such work involves dealing with the spatiality and materiality of resources and the political economy of their mode of production and appropriation, as well as the discursive aspects of their ‘social life'.This research also relates to policy reforms in resource governance as well as international security and trade frameworks, notably to improve the accountability of governments and businesses, as well as the well-being and security of populations in resource-dependent countries.

GRADUATE STUDENTS:

I welcome application from graduate students at MA and PhD levels, please send CV and brief statement of research interests. Current and former students:

Dawn Hoogeveen, PhD Extractive industries and North-South relations, 2008 - on-going (with J. Sundberg)

Jessica Lehman, MA, Post-tsunami coastal communities in Sri Lanka, 2008 – on-going (with J. Sundberg)

Sara Helder, MA, Fair trade coffee and producer health in Rwanda, 2008 – on-going (with H. Zerriffi, SSHRC funded)

Simon SPRINGER, PhD, Geographies of violence and public spaces ( with J. Peck, SSHRC funded, completed 2009 – now Assistant Professor, Geography, National University of Singapore)

Samuel Spiegel, Political ecology of artisanal gold mining, (with M. Veiga, completed 2008, Trudeau Fellowship)

Arno Waizenegger, MA, Natural disasters and conflict termination – Aceh, exchange student from U. Cologne (with F. Kraas, completed 2008)

Ian BAIRD, PhD, Resources, identities, and territoriality: the case of the Brao in Cambodia and Laos (SSHRC funded, completed 2008 – now post-doc. at the University of Victoria)

Estelle LEVIN, MA, Livelihoods and resource governance in the Kono diamonds fields, Sierra Leone (Commonwealth scholarship, completed 2005) - founding director of Resource Consulting Services, Cambridge)

COURSES:

Introduction to Political Geography / GEOG 329

Geographies of Africa / GEOG 496

Environment, Development, and Security / GEOG 519

Human Geography Graduate Seminar / GEOG 520

Publications

Selected articles

China's weapons trade: from ships of shame to the ethics of global resistance, International Affairs 85(2), 2009, 323-346 (with S.J. Spiegel).

Diamond Wars? Conflict diamonds and geographies of resource wars, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98(2), 2008, 345-372.

Peace in the wake of disaster? Secessionist conflicts with the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers32, 2007, 411-427 (with A. Waizenegger).

Fatal Transactions: conflict diamonds and the (anti)terrorist consumer, Antipode 38(4), 2006, 778-801.

Corruption: reconstruction and oil governance in Iraq., Third World Quarterly 26(4), 2005, 679-698.

From free oil to ‘freedom oil’: terrorism, war and US geopolitics in the Persian Gulf, Geopolitics 9(1), 2004, with F. El Khatib. [PDF available]

Buying Peace or Fuelling War: the Role of Corruption in Armed Conflicts, Journal of International Development 15(4), 2003, 413-26. [PDF available]

Conflict in Africa: the Cost of Peaceful Behavior, Journal of African Economies 11(3), 2003, 365-86, with Tony Addison and Mansoob Murshed.

Logging in Muddy Waters: the Politics of Forest Exploitation in Cambodia, Critical Asian Studies 34(4), 2002, 563-586.

The Political Ecology of War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts, Political Geography 20(5), 2001, 561-584. [PDF available]

Angola’s Political Economy of War: the Role of Oil and Diamonds 1975-2000, African Affairs 100, 2001, 55-80. [PDF available]

Finance in Conflict and Reconstruction, Journal of International Development 13, 2001, 951-64, (with T. Addison and M. Murshed).

The Political Ecology of Transition in Cambodia 1989-1999: War, Peace and Forest Exploitation, Development and Change 31(4), 2000, 785-805. [PDF available]

Monographs

Geopolitics of Resource Wars: Resource Dependence, Governance and Violence, (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 288pp.

Fuelling War: Natural Resources and Armed conflicts, Adelphi Paper 373. (London: Routledge for IISS), draft for comments. [PDF available]

Policy papers

The Political Economy of War: What Relief Agencies Need to Know. Humanitarian Practice Network paper no. 33 (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2000). http://www.odihpn.org/pdfbin/networkpaper033.pdf