Zones of entanglement: Researching mining arenas in Melanesia and beyond

Abstract

The social relations of resource extraction and the settings where these activities occur can be understood as ‘zones of entanglement’. Our notion of entanglement draws upon two interrelated bodies of thought on interfaces and conjunctures that allows us to emphasise certain material, historical and relational qualities found in contemporary mining arenas. This is no easy terrain for researchers, and engagement is fraught with difficult ethical, methodological and ontological challenges. In this paper we reflect on a selection of ‘positional’ alternatives from recent studies of large-scale mining. We argue that the complexity of the social landscape that individuals and institutions encounter when they become involved in research, advocacy or consultancy around large-scale mining operations demands a set of reflexive dialogical strategies that favour the voices of a diverse cast of actors and their conflicting interests, and avoids portraying local encounters in simple, binary terms. We also highlight the value of mobility as a strategic resource for anthropologists and other social scientists: unpacking, or unravelling the elements contained within these zones of entanglement will require openness to ethically grounded and serially positioned forms of engagement over time.