Sahrawi refugees and the Sahrawi state‐in‐exile have sought to assert their claims to Western Sahara, Africa's last colony, while exiled in refugee camps in Algeria. Through an examination of the Sahrawi state's use of deferred natural resource contracts, this article explores Sahrawi political action prior to – and in anticipation of – the referendum on self‐determination. I suggest that Sahrawi‐led natural resource contracts operate as a technical financial device that constructs property and enables political action in the anticipation of sovereignty. Through these contracts, the state works to simultaneously produce both itself and its sovereignty. This article explores the new political and economic forms generated by these contracts, which subsequently create a political terrain by which otherwise inaccessible, seemingly off‐limits, resources become productive spaces of opportunity for the development and exercise of sovereignty in the present.

中文翻译：

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出售未来国家：为西撒哈拉的撒哈拉主权创造财产


撒哈拉难民和撒哈拉流亡国在流亡到阿尔及利亚的难民营时，一直试图维护对非洲最后一块殖民地西撒哈拉的主权。通过审查撒哈拉国家对延期自然资源合同的使用，本文探讨了撒哈拉在自决公投之前和预期期间的政治行动。我建议撒哈拉人主导的自然资源合同作为一种技术性金融手段运作，可以构建财产并在主权预期中实现政治行动。通过这些合同，国家努力同时生产自己和主权。本文探讨了这些契约产生的新的政治和经济形式，这些形式随后创造了一个政治领域，通过这个政治领域，原本难以获得的、看似禁区的资源成为目前发展和行使主权的生产性机会空间。