Mining Conflicts Research Articles

Roles and Dynamics of State Actors and Civil Society Organizations in Company-Community Conflicts

Drawing on resource dependency, stakeholder management, and social movement literature our study identifies how the orientation of state actors and involvement of civil society actors affect conflict intensity between mining companies and communities. We also examine how vertical and horizontal inequalities can worsen power imbalance and increase conflict intensity. By using a hand-collected multi-source dataset of 453 global mining conflicts between 2002 and 2013, we found that state actors’ pro-social orientation lowers the conflict intensity while their pro-development orientation increases the conflict intensity when combined with the involvement of civil society organizations. Findings also show that societal horizontal and vertical inequalities increase the conflict intensity when both civil society organizations and state actors are involved because inequalities will weaken collaborations among parties.

EFECTIVIDAD DE LOS DERECHOS COLECTIVOS DE LOS PUEBLOS INDÍGENAS: EL CASO DE PERÚ Y EL ECUADOR

El artículo analiza el alcance de los derechos colectivos de los pueblos indígenas en Perú y en el Ecuador. Para el efecto se analizan los casos de los conflictos mineros en la Comunidad Nativa Tres Islas del Departamento peruano Madre Dios, y la lucha de los indígenas de la parroquia Tundayme, de la provincia ecuatoriana de Zamora Chinchipe. Se considera que el Convenio 169 de la OIT y los tratados internacionales, referentes a los derechos colectivos indígenas, garantizan sus derechos al territorio y a la sana supervivencia, y constituyen los instrumentos jurídicos más importantes en la lucha frente a la minería. No obstante, la existencia de estos y otros instrumentos internacionales suscritos por Perú y el Ecuador, los derechos colectivos de los indígenas son escasamente asumidos por los Estados.

Shades of Conflict in Kyrgyzstan: National Actor Perceptions and Behaviour in Mining

Confronted with advancing resource frontiers, local communities increasingly rely on conflict to re-establish order in the face of problematic interdependences brought about by mining transactions. This article captures the interactions at national level that engender these interdependences in the first place. We explore how national actor groups influence emerging regularities of behaviour in mining through the example of gold mining in Kyrgyzstan – a fragile resource-dependent country divided by mining conflicts. For the analysis of these emerging patterns of behaviour, we focus on shared beliefs and norms that in interaction with perceived dimensions of transactions provide motivation to act. The identified regularities of behaviour help differentiate the otherwise crude dichotomy of conflict and cooperation, pointing to shades of conflicts. Mining conflicts in Kyrgyzstan are driven by profound structural factors that are rooted in weak governance, lack of institutional trust and limited cooperation across national actor groups. Risks and costs are distributed to outgroups, threatening the local social-ecological systems and further fragmenting Kyrgyz society. If extraction continues in the current mode of governance, resource-based grievances are likely to persist in Kyrgyzstan, as mining will increasingly encroach on local ecosystems, livelihoods and cultural commons – unless the national perceptions and shared beliefs change.

Mining conflict in the Dominican Republic: The case of Loma Miranda

This paper assesses the willingness to pay (WTP) of the Dominican Republican society for a restoration and conservation program in Loma Miranda, an area rich in natural resources that is also proposed as a mining exploitation site. Loma Miranda is located in the Quisqueya mining concession, approximately 100 km from the country's capital, Santo Domingo, making the decision to exploit or conserve a national dilemma. A national face-to-face survey was conducted during the first quarter of 2019, reaching a representative sample of 1200 individuals. The estimation of the WTP was performed using a non-parametric and a parametric, logistic estimation by way of robustness check. The average WTP estimated by the parametric method was $DOP 159.00 (≈US$3.15) per month per household. The aggregate WTP reached a total amount of US$87.2 million per year. The WTP in favor of the conservation of Loma Miranda is higher in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo but lower in the vicinity of Loma Miranda.

Participatory Institutions as a Focal Point for Mobilizing: Prior Consultation and Indigenous Conflict in Colombia’s Extractive Industries

This article systematically analyzes how the participatory institution “prior consultation” indirectly gave Colombian indigenous communities a voice in five major hydrocarbon and mining conflicts by creating opportunities to organize around the institution. Mobilized indigenous groups did not express their concerns about extraction within the prescribed prior consultation meetings. Instead, they refused to be consulted, they challenged the lack of, or their exclusion from, prior consultation, and they preemptively achieved environmental protections. Variation in tactics is explained by (1) the stage of the planned extraction, (2) whether the state initially determined that a community was affected by the extraction, and (3) the degree of unity among affected communities. The article further highlights the role of Colombia’s Constitutional Court in interpreting and weighing the rights that underlie prior consultation procedures.

Discursive positioning of actors in a gold mining conflict in Northern Greece: Risk calculus, subjectification and place

The gold mining conflict in Skouries, Greece, has been a major natural resource controversy during the last several years. The present contribution focused on the discursive positioning of pro- and anti-mining actors, who all strove to remain agents of risk by employing manifest strategies (institutional and grassroots initiatives) and latent strategies (not yet enacted but voiced). These strategies have been incubating divergent subject positions in each camp. Anytime the mining project was threatened, miners took over mining tunnels to demonstrate their indispensable bonds with their work and place in a pre-burial connotation. In sharp contrast to miners’ dependence on the mining company, local activists built on their own competences. Despite their strong bonds with place, activists with a post-fordist model of working and labour conditions were compelled to consider evacuating the area. The study showcases how natural resource conflicts are co-created by antagonistic actors in their discursive positioning.

Minería a gran escala, pluralismo territorial y contención:

Over the last decade, Ecuador has become a new frontier for large-scale mining expansion and this article aims to analyze the territorial transformations and contentious politics that are induced by this new capitalist activity. It therefore presents a case-study of Ecuador’s first large-scale mining project, the Mirador copper mine in the Cordillera del Cóndor in the Amazon region. Using analytical insights from the current debates on territory, specifically the recently coined concept of “territorial pluralism”, the article shows the multiple historical territorialization processes that shaped the Cordillera del Cóndor and describes the interruptive reconfiguration introduced by the mining project. It furthermore examines the visions and strategies of local resistance group. Based on this analysis, I conclude that this particular approach to territory contributes to our comprehension of mining conflicts by revealing the distinct forms of understanding and relating to space and nature, and the power relations that constitute them. I moreover argue that territorial pluralism helps to explain how the repertoires of contention and alternatives that surge from these struggles are structured.

Analyse de l'utilisation asymétrique du pouvoir dans les conflits miniers au Pérou

This article deals with mining conflicts in Peru and mobilizes a Political Ecology approach, focusing on the importance of power asymmetries. After presenting the methodological and theoretical framework of our study, we present a legal and institutional overview of the relationships between the Peruvian state and mining issues. We insist on the historical and territorial dimensions which help to understand why the mining issue exacerbates power asymmetries, already important in Peru. The article then focuses on the Conga case study, to illustrate how the various elements identified at the national level are also taking concrete form on the ground, in this emblematic case. We then discuss the main lessons derived from this analytical framework and from the Conga case study, compared with other socio-environmental conflicts in Peru. The paper concludes with the arguments in favor of a post-extractivist solution and its feasibility conditions, given the persistence of a power asymmetry.

Political opportunity and mobilization: The evolution of a Swedish mining-sceptical movement

As demand for minerals is expected to increase due to the energy transition needed to meet climate targets, mineral exploration will continue intensifying. Surveys find that public acceptance of the mining industry is low, particularly in the EU, suggesting that mining conflicts may increase in both number and intensity. Conflict usually occurs in places where a significant number of local actors mobilize resistance against a mining company. Their success is dependent on the emergence of a broader social movement that jumps to the relevant scale of regulation, often the national level. Despite this, very little attention is being paid to the emergence of such a movement, as well as to the state and its institutions, in studies on mining conflicts. Most research into mining conflicts examines developing countries, while mining resistance is an emerging issue also in developed nations, not least in the Arctic. Understanding mining resistance is important in avoiding or addressing conflicts that can be costly for companies, communities, and the state. This paper explores the relationship between state politics and mining resistance at the national level, drawing on social movement research and the concept of political opportunity structures. The results show that confrontational mining resistance will grow at the national level when the state offers little access nor influence to mining-sceptical actors in either policy formulation or implementation, and where there is a sufficient number of simultaneously ongoing contested licensing processes. In cases where indigenous people are involved, weak or contested indigenous rights may also spur resistance.

The Enduring State: An analysis of governance-making in three mining conflicts

This article investigates the profound ambiguity of the state in the organization of contemporary business–society relations. On the one hand, there has been a decisive shift from government to governance, encouraging private actors, such as corporations, communities and NGOs, to address social and environmental concerns themselves, i.e. without the state’s involvement. On the other hand, however, the continued importance and relevance of the organized state is difficult to ignore. In this article we examine the role of the state in three cases of mining conflicts in Chile, one of the world’s most important mining countries. Through longitudinal, qualitative research of conflictive mining governance relations between state organizations, large corporations and local communities, we show that the modes of influence conducted by the Chilean state oscillate between direct, central steering (‘cathedral’) and indirect, dispersed vouching (‘bazaar’). Elaborating on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, we offer a hybrid theory of state organization, where the dematerialization of the state’s responsibility is seen not as the norm but rather as a particular mode of governance that sits alongside the underestimated, yet enduring, material involvement of the state.

The Enduring State: An analysis of governance-making in three mining conflicts

The Enduring State: An analysis of governance-making in three mining conflicts

Black Sand and the Red Court: Scalar Politics of a Mining Conflict in the Philippines

This article presents a case study of a dispute over magnetite mining in the Municipality of Gonzaga in the Philippines that culminated in the assassination of the town’s mayor by the New People’s Army (NPA) insurgency. Drawing on the analysis of qualitative data compiled from key informant interviews, survey responses, and document review, it examines the deployment of scalar politics by local politicians, antimining activists, and the NPA during the conflict. Results suggest that failures of resource governance, in conjunction with grievances related to the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of mining, created opportunities for the NPA to forge alliances with local civilian networks and propagate its revolutionary narrative. The findings offer generalizable insights regarding the role of natural resources in shaping vulnerability to, risk of, and opportunity for armed conflict, as well as the mechanisms by which local conflicts can become entangled with broader patterns of civil violence. In particular, it is argued that the multiple overlapping scalar configurations that define extractive industry create unique opportunities for political actors to engage in “scale jumping” to challenge established power structures. Key Words: natural resources and civil conflict, political ecology, scale, scale jumping.本文呈现在菲律宾刚萨加市的磁铁矿採矿冲突之案例研究，该冲突随着该城镇的市长被新人民军（NPA）叛变暗杀后达到高峰。本文对主要的受访者、调查回覆和档案回顾集结而成的质性数据进行分析，以检视地方政治人物、反採矿倡导人士、以及NPA在冲突中运用的尺度政治。研究结果显示，资源治理的失败，加上对採矿的环境及社会经济冲击的不满，为NPA创造了与地方公民网络建立联盟并传播其革命叙事的机会。研究发现提供了有关自然资源在形塑对武装冲突的脆弱性、武装冲突的风险，以及武装冲突的机会的可普遍化之洞见，以及地方冲突能与更广阔的公民暴力模式相互纠结的机制。本文特别主张，定义榨取产业的多重相互交叠的尺度结构，为政治行动者创造了涉入“尺度跳跃”以挑战建置的权力结构之独特契机。关键词：自然资源和公民冲突，政治生态学，尺度，尺度跳跃。Este artículo presenta un estudio de caso relacionado con una disputa sobre la minería de magnetita en la Municipalidad de Gonzaga, en las Filipinas, que culminó en el asesinato del alcalde del pueblo por la insurgencia del Ejército del Nuevo Pueblo (NPA). Co base en el análisis de datos cualitativos compilados de entrevistas con informantes claves, respuestas a estudios y revisión de documentos, el artículo examina el despliegue de políticas escalares durante el conflicto por los políticos locales, los activistas contra la minería y el NPA. Los resultados sugieren que los tropiezos de la gobernanza de los recursos, en conjunción con las quejas relacionadas con los impactos ambientales y socioeconómicos de la minería, crearon oportunidades para el NPA de lograr alianzas con las redes civiles locales y propagar su narrativa revolucionaria. Los hallazgos ofrecen perspicacias generalizables en relación con el papel de los recursos naturales en configurar la vulnerabilidad al conflicto armado, y el riesgo y oportunidad para el mismo, lo mismo que los mecanismos por medio de los cuales los conflictos locales pueden enredarse con los patrones más amplios de la violencia civil. En particular, se arguye que el múltiple solapamiento de las relaciones escalares que definen la industria extractiva crean oportunidades únicas entre los actores políticos de comprometerse en un “salto de escala” para desafiar las estructuras de poder establecidas. Palabras clave: ecología política, escala, recursos naturales y conflicto civil, salto de escala.

Mining for Mother Earth. Governmentalities, sacred waters and nature’s rights in Ecuador

Getting public opinion to see ‘mining’ and ‘Nature’s Rights’ as non-contradictory and even equivalent and harmonious, calls for far-reaching power strategies. Nature was entitled to rights by Ecuador’s Constitution at about the same time that the Government began promoting mining as central to Ecuador’s future. Building this equivalence to make ‘mining mean nature’, and materialize large-scale mining in the Quimsacocha páramo wetlands, the State and its institutions tested new tactics to manage territory, coined new imaginaries and subjectivities, and limited indigenous/rural political participation. In response, communities started to dispute these governmentality strategies through political practices that framed new meanings of territory and identity. They use formal political and legal arenas but, above all, their day-to-day practices. This article analyzes forms of power and counter-power in the Quimsacocha páramo mining conflict, through the four different, inter-related ‘arts of government’ (Foucault, 2008) and mutual strategies by promoters and detractors of extractive industry who, in apparent paradox, both appeal to Nature’s Rights. We conclude that using Nature’s Rights to promote mega-mining manifests the limitations of social and environmental rights recognition under neoliberal governance, and the tensions inherent in Nature’s Rights themselves. However, anti-extraction struggles like Quimsacocha’s critically make visible as well as challenge the development model and economic system that is implicit in the debate over Nature’s Rights, inviting us to re-think the socio-natural order and foster more just, equitable alternatives.

The Mining Conflict Game: A Proposal to Disentangle and Settle Mining Conflicts Using Game Theory

Peru has been the scene of many conflicts for the access and use of water bodies between mining companies and rural communities for almost 30 years now. In this document, a Bayesian approach has been used to model this type of conflict as a game. The approach was chosen because it allows players with incomplete information about each other, and consequently there is uncertainty about the options to choose and the payoffs they might obtain, and therefore players have to make inferences about others’ decisions and then update those inferences ex-post. Using this analytical tool, it is demonstrated that a pacific and constructive settlement for a mining conflict is feasible, and it happens when the mining company cooperates and shows compliance with regulations and rural communities do not protest violently against the mines. Furthermore, that situation is a stable equilibrium under either good or bad government regulation.

Resistance to Canadian mining projects in Mexico: lessons from the lifecycle of the San Xavier Mine in San Luis Potosí

<p>This article analyses resistance movements to large-scale mining projects in Mexico, particularly the case of sustained organized resistance to the San Xavier Mine, in the central north state of San Luis Potosí. As one of the first struggles in Mexico against Canadian mining projects after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the leaders of this movement pioneered strategies of resistance on the legal front and were instrumental in building anti-mining alliances and networks on the national and international levels. Now that the excavation process has finished and the mine is closing down, this article seeks to draw on the case to illustrate the complementarity of three approaches for interpreting resistance to mining: class struggle, ecological distribution conflicts, and the clash of cultural valuations over territorial vocation. The argument is that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; they can be combined to explain the multiple dimensions of specific struggles, whose shifts in emphasis at different moments of the struggle are conditioned by – and condition – the phase of a mine's development. By contextualizing the case study in a broader analysis of social environmental conflicts around mining in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the analysis seeks to illustrate the ways in which the struggle against the San Xavier Mine is representative of broader trends, as well as its peculiarities. On the local level, we find the struggle has more to do with defending conditions of social and cultural reproduction than protecting the means of production that sustain traditional livelihoods. This pertains, not just to a non-contaminated living environment and the availability of clean water for human consumption, but also to the conservation of natural and architectural patrimony with historic and cultural significance.</p><p><strong>Key words</strong>: Mining conflicts, Canadian imperialism, political class formation, ecological distribution, cultural valuations</p>

Dreams of treasures and dreams of wilderness – engaging with the beyond-the-rational in extractive industries in northern Fennoscandia

ABSTRACT Few industries are surrounded with such drama as mining. The extractive sector is a highly contested industry that triggers strong emotional responses. Simultaneously, dreams of prosperity and of a better future have been attached to mining ventures throughout history. Nevertheless, mining is predominantly presented as a ‘rational’ space. I argue that a more comprehensive understanding is needed on the influence of what I call beyond-the-rational on modern mining conflicts. This approach is particularly relevant when examining the extractive industries in northern Fennoscandia due to various Utopian constructs having been attached to the North for centuries. Thus, current mining disputes are embedded in broader cultural dreams and they need to be examined with a long-term perspective. In this article, I discuss how being aware of the role dreams play in mining enables the opening of constructive dialogue between the opposition and proponents of mining projects and is a step towards creating more sustainable communities. Finally, I suggest, that the existence of two contrary cultural visions, of wilderness and of upcoming prosperity, is one reason behind the polarisation of discussions around northern mining projects.

Quando nem a palavra é de prata, nem o silêncio é de ouro. Análise de conflitos sobre mineração em Portugal

This paper analyzes eight cases of mining conflicts in Portugal, focusing on the protest actions triggered, as well as the impacts they have produced. Methodologically, documentary analysis was undertaken. The results revealed collective action as the available resource for the affected populations to communicate their perceptions and arguments about the problems felt and to make their lived situations visible. Protest actions registered were able to produce legislative changes, even concerning specific situations, and gave visibility to the particularities of each case.

Etnícídades, etno-territorios y conflictos mineros: aportes para una geografía humana de los aymaras en Chile 1

This article analyzes the phenomenon of the Aymara ethnicity and the creation of eth- no-territories in the context of mining conflicts and the indigenous neoliberal politic. The questions that guide this research are: How have the Aymara communities evolved in Northern Chile? What kind of dynamics has been established and in what territories have they been implemented? To answer these questions, the theoretical approaches about ethnicity and ethno-territory will be critically reviewed in the first place, and in the second place, there is an analysis about how ethnicities and ethno-territories take shape, as social construction and political projects, through a perspective that combines the analysis of the specialized literature, interviews, descriptive statistics analysis of secondary sources, and spatial analisis.

An analysis of Peru: Is water driving mining conflicts?

Mining projects face community opposition in various parts of the world, and water is often perceived as a primary source of such opposition. Despite the proliferation of community conflicts at mine sites, there is a dearth of documented, quantitative analyses for insights as to the factors contributing to such conflicts. Peru provides a useful case study for such an analysis given the history of data collection on mining-related conflicts. We provide a statistical analysis with data from Peru from 2007 to 2016. During this time period the country was plagued with numerous mining related conflicts. We have separated out those conflicts that were perceived to be water related. Apart from reviewing national trends, this paper also analyses region-level data. We find that quality and availability of water are drivers for those water-related social conflicts with mining companies. However, other factors such as past conflicts and revenue payments to the sub-national level play a bigger role.

Inversión minera, conflictividad y pobreza regional en el Perú 2007-2017

Inversión minera, conflictividad y pobreza regional en el Perú 2007-2017