The politics of toxicity governance in Colombian gold mining

Abstract

The most recent Global Mercury Assessment estimates that human-made mercury releases are approximately 2,220 tons per year and that a significant source is artisanal and small-scale gold mining (UNEP 2019). The ubiquity of mercury and its negative effects on human health and the environment have given rise to mercury governance schemes at different administrative scales, and Colombia banned the substance from mining in 2018. This ban is depicted as protecting the environment and human health from toxic mercury, but it has been highly contested within artisanal and small-scale gold mining communities. This contribution will show that the contestations of the mercury ban are intimately related to the deeply political and representational qualities of mercury held by artisanal and small-scale gold producers. Hence, mercury governance has become an important dimension of a broader negotiation over the place of historically marginalized and increasingly criminalized artisanal and small-scale gold producers in contemporary extractivism. The combination of legal framework analysis with semi-structured interviews and ethnographic work in two gold mining towns in Colombia provides a more nuanced and politicized understanding of local opposition to mercury governance that moves beyond simplistic assumptions about mercury users and their contaminated bodies.