Naval Stores Extraction in Eastern North Carolina: The Historical Basis of Spatial Inequality within a Core Nation

• Main Authors: Adam Driscoll, Edward L. Kick
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2015-08-01
• Series: Journal of World-Systems Research
• Subjects: Internal peripheries, extractive processes, regional economies
• Online Access: http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/518

Within world-systems research there is an overwhelming tendency to treat nation-states as homogenous wholes. With some notable exceptions. this approach downplays the existence and operation of core-periphery relations on the sub-national level and the resultant inequality between different regions of nation-states. This study uses various complementary literatures in an integrative fashion to address this lacuna within the world-systems approach. We argue that uneven geographical development within core nations can at least partially be explained by the historical appropriation of natural capital; a universal process in which site-specific geographic factors and the larger political-economic context of the world-system interact. over time. to produce linked regions of relative accumulation and deprivation. To demonstrate the utility of this approach. we examine eastern North Carolina "s history as the principal producer of naval stores for Great Britain "s navy during Britain "s ascension toward hegemonic status in the world-system during the eighteenth century. We highlight how those initial extractive activities functioned as a "de-generative sector, hindering the region "s overall development. We argue generally for a synthetic approach to development theory and corresponding empirical examinations of modern and historical inequalities.