Mining and miners have been in the news a lot recently, with the injustices at Lonmin’s Marikana mine taking centre stage (see here and here).
For resource geographers we think there are connections to be made to, and lessons learnt from, Illinois State University geographer Matt Himley’s paper, forthcomng in Antipode 45(2), ‘Regularizing Extraction in Andean Peru: Mining and Social Mobilization in an Age of Corporate Social Responsibility‘.
The paper examines the new forms of regulation and resistance accompanying the expanding extractive frontier in Andean Peru. Analysing a process of community mobilization at the Pierina gold mine in the region of Áncash – a process aimed at transforming the conditions under which area residents labored at the mine – the paper documents the complex ways in which the emergence of neoliberalized forms of resource governance has affected the terrain of mining-related sociopolitical struggle at Pierina, both allowing the mining firm to consolidate authority in the arena of mine-community relations, while also establishing certain conditions for residents to pursue their interests collectively. Matt’s analysis of the Pierina case suggests that efforts to forge more just and equitable political economies of mineral development must not only challenge the neoliberalization of resource governance, but also confront the underlying socio-ecological contradictions of contemporary capitalist resource development.
You can see Matt discussing the paper below.