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The Dictionary of Extractive Economies

A field guide to understanding how concepts, patterns, and cultural knowledge are extracted, repackaged, and re-deployed within semantic warfare systems.

"A groundbreaking glossary that exposes the mechanics of pattern theft, conceptual laundering, and lived resistance in extractive systems."

Academic Foundation

This dictionary provides the core terminology underlying Semantic War Theory, Extractive Economy analysis, and lived-experience resistance frameworks. It formalises language essential for analysing conceptual theft and epistemic exploitation.

The Dictionary of Extractive Economies

A foundational glossary establishing the conceptual architecture of extractive economies, including pattern theft, semantic laundering, appropriation mechanisms, and resistance strategies. This work anchors both Semantic War Theory and broader Advocacy & Systems Strategy research.

Publication Details

Author:
Sarah Ailish McLoughlin
Publisher:
The Index Line
Provider:
Strategic Advocacy Australia
Publication Date:
10 July 2025
ISBN-13:
978-1923549098
ASIN:
B0FHBC24YQ
Wikidata:
Q137324353

Contributing Organisations

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The Australian Advocacy Institute

Supporting rigorous frameworks for structural advocacy, systems ethics, and conceptual integrity.

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EduPsyched

Inclusion Consultant

Ensuring this work applies inclusive research methodology and is accessible to neurodivergent and lived-experience communities.

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EduLinked

Digital Accessibility Advisor

Ensuring accessibility best-practice is followed across digital publishing, semantic markup, and structural navigation.

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How This Framework Shapes This Guide

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Extractive Systems Analysis

This dictionary defines key terminology used to identify and analyse harmful extraction patterns inside social, cultural, and organisational systems.

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Semantic War Theory Alignment

The language introduced here provides the conceptual armoury required to recognise and disrupt semantic warfare tactics.

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Advocacy & Systems Strategy

These terms help practitioners, advocates, and researchers pursue structural solutions, resist conceptual extraction, and build protective knowledge systems.

Core Concepts

Key terminology that forms the conceptual foundation of extractive economies, semantic warfare dynamics, and lived resistance frameworks.

Extractive Economies

Systems in which ideas, culture, labour, or emotional energy are taken without fair reciprocity, recognition, or ethical exchange.

Pattern Theft

The appropriation of distinct cognitive, cultural, or conceptual patterns from marginalised communities without acknowledgment or correct attribution.

Conceptual Laundering

Transforming marginalised knowledge into palatable or commercial forms that erase original meaning, source context, or author identity.

Semantic Warfare

Strategic manipulation of language, definitions, and discourse to control narratives, disempower communities, or distort public understanding.

Lived Resistance

Everyday strategies through which individuals and communities maintain ownership of their knowledge, identity, and meaning-making systems.

Attraction Mechanisms

The ways extractive systems identify, select, and draw in high-value cultural concepts for repurposing.

Practical Applications

Applying the dictionary enables individuals, communities, and organisations to identify extraction patterns, protect conceptual integrity, and build systems grounded in ethical knowledge exchange.

Individual Level

Building literacy in extraction patterns, protecting authorship, and recognising early signs of conceptual misappropriation.

Community Level

Strengthening cultural safety, establishing ethical norms, and developing shared strategies for resisting conceptual erasure.

Organisational Level

Implementing policies that ensure attribution integrity, ethical collaboration, and protection against exploitative knowledge-use practices.

This framework provides the conceptual tools needed to resist extraction and protect lived knowledge.