Over the past two decades, the extraction of nonrenewable resources in Latin America has given rise to many forms of struggle, particularly among disadvantaged populations. The first analytical collection to combine geographical and political ecological approaches to the post-1990s changes in Latin America’s extractive economy, Subterranean Struggles closely examines the factors driving this expansion and the sociopolitical, environmental, and political economic consequences it has wrought.
In this analysis, more than a dozen experts explore the many facets of struggles surrounding extraction, from protests in the vicinity of extractive operations to the everyday efforts of excluded residents who try to adapt their livelihoods while industries profoundly impact their lived spaces. The book explores the implications of extractive industry for ideas of nature, region, and nation; “resource nationalism” and environmental governance; conservation, territory, and indigenous livelihoods in the Amazon and Andes; everyday life and livelihood in areas affected by small- and large-scale mining alike; and overall patterns of social mobilization across the region.
Arguing that such struggles are an integral part of the new extractive economy in Latin America, the authors document the increasingly conflictive character of these interactions, raising important challenges for theory, for policy, and for social research methodologies. Featuring works by social and natural science authors, this collection offers a broad synthesis of the dynamics of extractive industry whose relevance stretches to regions beyond Latin America.
Preface and Acknowledgements
1. Political Ecologies of the Subsoil
Anthony Bebbington and Jeffrey Bury
2. New Geographies of Extractive Industries in Latin America
Jeffrey Bury and Anthony Bebbington
3. Nature and Nation: Hydrocarbons, Governance, and the Territorial Logics of "Resource Nationalism" in Bolivia
4. Rocks, Rangers, and Resistance: Mining and Conservation Frontiers in the Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru
Jeffrey Bury and Timothy Norris
5. Water for Gold: Confronting State and Corporate Mining Discourses in Azuay, Ecuador
Jennifer Moore and Teresa Velásquez
6. Territorial Transformations in El Pangui, Ecuador: Understanding How Mining Conflict Affects Territorial Dynamics, Social Mobilization, and Daily Life
Ximena S. Warnaars
7. Hydrocarbon Conflicts and Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon: Mobilization and Negotiation Along the Río Corrientes
Anthony Bebbington and Martin Scurrah
8. Synergistic Impacts of Gas and Mining Development in Bolivia's Chiquitanía: The Significance of Analytical
9. Natural Resources in the Subsoil and Social Conflicts on the Surface: Perspectives on Peru's Subsurface Political
Julio C. Postigo, Mariana Montoya, and Kenneth R. Young
10. Anatomies of Conflict: Social Mobilization and New Political Ecologies of the Andes
Anthony Bebbington, Denise Humphreys Bebbington, Leonith Hinojosa, María-Luisa Burneo, and Jeffrey Bury
Anthony Bebbington, Jeffrey Bury, and Emily Gallagher
“Innovative. . . . Subterranean Struggles does a superb job of providing a unique, up-to-date overview of the social dimensions of mining in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.”
—Gregory Knapp, Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin
“The last few years have seen a real growth of interest in extractive industry . . . the topic has begun to boom. This book is sure to be a foundational text for political ecologists and scholars from cognate fields as they work to make sense of the recent worldwide expansion of oil, gas, and mineral extraction as well as the struggles and contestations that this expansion has generated.”
—Matthew Himley, Assistant Professor of Geography, Illinois State University
"If, as the conclusion states, 'history and memory are again central to how people make sense of contemporary extraction', we owe the editors and contributors our gratitude for making sure that history is told in a manner as scholastically rigorous, and conceptually cogent, as possible."
—Benjamin K. Sovacool, Journal of Latin American Geography