Roadblock Geographies: A Typology of Extraction, Circulation, and Authority in Conflict

Roadblocks and checkpoints have become ubiquitous features of conflict-affected borderlands, yet their political and economic significance remains unevenly theorised. While existing scholarship has documented their role in financing armed actors and shaping everyday mobility, less attention has been paid to how roadblocks relate to the underlying transport geographies within which they operate. This article advances debates on extractivism, circulation and conflict by conceptualising roadblocks as micro-sites of extractive power embedded in broader logistical landscapes. Building on transport geography and literature on the politics of circulation, it argues that variations in transport infrastructure—ranging from informal paths to paved corridors and global logistics hubs—systematically shape who can extract rents from movement, where, and with what distributive effects. The article develops a typology of roadblock geographies based on two dimensions: the number of checkpoint-wielding actors and the types of routes on which they operate. Drawing on comparative evidence from multiple conflict settings, it identifies five ideal-typical configurations: gatekeeper states, intra-route competition, green/grey divisions of power, diffuse authority, and inter-route competition. Rather than mutually exclusive, these configurations are complementary, scalable and often coexist within the same conflict landscape. By foregrounding the interaction between transport infrastructure and extractive practices, the typology offers a heuristic for mapping patterns of authority, rent distribution and political power in conflict-affected borderlands, and contributes to politicising transport geography as a key site of contemporary extractive governance.