Introduction: Natural resources and ethnic conflicts in Asia Pacific

The papers in this special issue are the product of a comparative interdisciplinary workshop on ‘Natural Resources and Violent Ethnic Conflicts in the Asia Pacific Region’ held in Honolulu, Hawaii, 18–20 March 2005. The workshop brought together scholars who study conflicts between ethnic groups and those who study conflicts over natural resource claims in order to examine the interplay of resources and ethnicity and to seek answers to the question of why violence occurs in some cases and not in others. Both sets of scholars agreed on some points but disagreed on others. They agreed that ethnic and resource grievances occur not so much out of objective deprivation but out of ‘relative deprivation’ when groups compare their situation with others, to the past, or to future expectations. They both stressed the role of democratic processes in alleviating resource competition and ethnic conflicts – but they did this in different ways. The perspectives and solutions offered by these papers sum to a deeper and more contextualised understanding of the cause of conflict and to mutually reinforcing solutions for resolving them.