Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter commences by discussing an important counterfactual—large-scale mining on “mainland” PNG—that clarifies the book’s arguments. While many of the same socio-spatial tensions are evident in mainland PNG’s extractive enclaves, the coproduction of scale and territory that is uniquely possible in islands comes into stark relief in this comparison. The chapter then turns to the book’s theoretical and policy implications. I suggest that the book’s arguments have consequences for the treatment of scale both in human geography and in the island studies literature. Recent and proposed reforms to mining policy and legislation in Bougainville and Solomon Islands are then analysed. I conclude that these new institutional arrangements, while imperfect, nevertheless demonstrate the potential for conflicts over resource extraction to be socially and politically generative.