extractive

Extractive is an adjective describing activities that draw resources or information from elsewhere. It derives from Latin ex- meaning 'out' and trahere meaning 'to pull.' While commonly used for natural resource extraction, the term can also apply to processes that retrieve data or knowledge from a source.

Extractive industries involve removing materials from the environment, such as mining, oil and gas, and forestry. These activities translate resources into goods or inputs for other sectors, and they are typically regulated through licenses and environmental standards. Debates around extractive activity emphasize environmental protection, social impacts, questions of revenue use, and the risks of dependence on finite resources.

In economics and political science, extractive describes institutions or systems that enable a narrow elite to extract wealth without broad participation or investment. The concept contrasts with inclusive institutions that distribute power and opportunity more widely. Discussions often address governance, accountability, and the so-called resource curse in resource-rich economies.

In linguistics and computer science, extractive refers to methods that retrieve material from a source rather than generating new content. Extractive summarization selects existing sentences to form a summary, while information extraction aims to identify and structure data such as entities and relationships from text.

Other uses include extractive metallurgy, the branch of metallurgy focused on obtaining metals from ore, and more generally any process that extracts a value from data. The meaning of extractive is thus highly field-dependent and should be understood in context.