Community capitals of a Paramaca Maroon village in pictures: a Photovoice study on community resilience in the context of large-scale gold mining

Abstract

Abstract In 2014, Newmont, a multinational mining company, invested in a large-scale ‘open-pit’ gold mining operation near a cluster of villages in the Paramaca Maroon community in Suriname. Mines are considered stressors that engender ecological, social and economic disruption. It is vital that place-based communities are resilient to the impact of this disruption. Resilience theory provides an applicable framework for studying how systems respond (i.e. cope, adapt or transform) in the face of exogenous stressors and disruptions. The Photovoice study presented in this paper, using the community capitals (CCs) framework, explores in a holistic and systemic way the CCs that exist in a Paramaca Maroon village, and how such capitals contribute to resiliency. The methodology assumes that people are experts regarding their own lives, and can voice their experiences, concerns and views of both the past and the future through imagery that speaks through and for them. This study shows that participants focus on the lack and erosion of CCs, yet, despite this, the Paramaca society displays resiliency. The Paramaca Maroon community is able to articulate its demands within the corporate decision-making process on sustainable community development, primarily by adapting their political organization to the new reality and by mobilizing their intangible capitals, such as social, cultural, human, political capital, in the face of exogenous stressors and disruptions.