Gold conflict and contested conduct: Large- and small-scale mining subjectivities in Indonesia

Abstract

Resource extraction shapes the people who live and work in its midst. In Pongkor, Indonesia, these transformations revolve around long-running tensions between large- and small-scale gold miners. The region is home to a state-owned industrial mine as well as thousands of unlicensed, small-scale miners. These actors have competed over the same gold deposits, and who has the authority to mine them, for more than three decades. In this article, I examine how this resource conflict informs multiple, co-constitutive extractive subjectivities in Pongkor. I expand upon existing analyses of resource governance, extractive development, and environmental conflict by examining the multi-directional, interrelated processes of subject formation entailed in asserting claims to resources. Drawing on ethnographic research, I frame the situation in Pongkor as a territorial conflict with three competing subject formation processes at its core. First, the mining company has attempted to end small-scale mining by reconstituting local people as more amenable development subjects. It emphasizes particular nationalistic, economic, and moral values through both disciplinary and community development programs. Second, small-scale miners have responded by cultivating political subjectivities grounded in a collective “community miner” identity. Community miners go beyond simply participating in gold-based livelihoods; they learn to argue for rights to local resources. Third, the mining company has pursued internal reforms aimed at remaking itself and its employees. Using small-scale miners as a foil, company leaders work to reposition their operations as a model of clean and green development. In tracing these processes, I complicate narratives of industrial extractive dominance and community resistance by demonstrating that subjects inside and outside of mining operations are co-constituted. I call for further research on the shaping of varied subject positions—including corporate mining employees, small-scale miners, and local residents—involved in extractive conflicts.