Disputes over gold mining and dispossession of local afrodescendant communities from the Alto Cauca, Colombia

Abstract

In 2001, the local afrodescendant community from La Toma faced a double threat. First, new mining legislation was introduced and their ancestral mining activities were declared illegal. Second, paramilitary groups entered the territory and initiated a regime of terror that continues to date. Mining titles were conceded to multinationals and private parties, while the communities were restricted in their access to land-based resources. This paper deals with different dimensions of local dispossession resulting from violent mechanisms as well as from the neoliberal adjustment of the mining regulatory system in Colombia.