Anna Zalik’s research focuses on the political economy and political ecology of oil, gas and other extractives, centering on their spatial and social relations with historical and contemporary colonialism.
A central stream of her work concerns the merging of industrial security and community ‘development’ interventions expressed in contemporary private aid programs and corporate social practice. Recently she has examined transparency discourse in the extractive sector as a manifestation of this trend.
Another area of research concerns the relationship between popular resistance to extraction, risk analysis as carried out by global financial institutions, and the spatial reorganization of energy and extractive infrastructure.
She has carried out field research in Nigeria, Mexico, Canada and more recently at the International Seabed Authority.
Her work is conducted in collaboration with community-based organizations and colleagues, financed by York University and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
