G Model

EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9

The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The Extractive Industries and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/exis

Review article

The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview

Kelsey A. Brain*
Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 9 September 2016 This review article synthesizes research findings which demonstrate that mining in the Andes is
Received in revised form 28 February 2017 transforming local livelihoods by changing water quality and quantity and land tenure practices upon
Accepted 1 March 2017 which traditional livelihoods depend, as well as by generating new employment opportunities in mining
Available online xxx communities. I argue that research on livelihood change in Andean mining communities would be
enriched by 1) a deeper attendance to the gendered, raced, and classed nature of these changes and 2) the
Keywords: disaggregation of different mining management regimes (e.g. state-run, privately-run, cooperative-run)
Livelihoods to allow for comparisons of the livelihood impacts between them.
Mining
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Extraction
Andes
Intersectionality
Feminist political ecology

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
2. Mining in the Andes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3. Impacts of mining on livelihoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.1. Impacts on livelihoods via water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.2. Impacts on livelihoods via land tenure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.3. Impacts on livelihoods via new employment opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
3.4. Placing the livelihood-change literature in context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
4. Attending to social difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
5. Attending to different forms of mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00

1. Introduction mining activities are negatively impacting local livelihoods.

In October 2016, two protests just four days apart in separate
mining communities in southern Peru resulted in violent clashes
between police and protesters (Post, 2016a,b). Followed in
December 2016 by violent confrontations in Ecuador (Ling,
2017), these protests are only the most recent and visible in a
growing mobilization by local residents in opposition to increased
mining activity in the Andes since the 1990s (Himley, 2012;
Jenkins, 2015). One of the central claims made by protesters is that
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kjb5816@psu.edu (K.A. Brain).
Specifically, recent protests have organized around the claim that
pollution from mines and transport trucks kills livestock and
reduces fertility of agricultural fields (Post, 2016a,b). The protest-
ers’ fears are not unfounded, as a common feature of resource
dependent countries is increased poverty and worsened living
conditions for populations in close proximity to mines, despite
growing national GDPs (Valdivia, 2011).
In this article, I synthesize a vibrant and rapidly growing body of
research on the impacts of Andean mining on local livelihoods. This
research demonstrates that Andean livelihoods are altered
primarily by the effects of mines on: (1) water quality and
quantity, (2) land tenure practices, and (3) shifting employment
opportunities. Despite the vitality of work on the mining-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
2214-790X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
2 K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
livelihood change nexus in the Andes, I argue that this literature
would be greatly enriched by further analysis in two key respects.
First, only a few of the studies synthesized here attend to how
livelihood changes are experienced differently within communi-
ties or households based on gender, race, or age. Second, the
studies do not adequately address how different forms of mining
present in the Andes – foreign-run, state-run, cooperative-run, and
artisanal – may differentially impact livelihoods.
Attending to intra-community and intra-household social
difference when examining livelihood change in Andean mining
communities is important because of the potential vulnerability of
specific groups to mining, based on age, race, or gender. For
example, transnational mining corporations have been charged
with nine human rights cases for violating women’s rights,
including inflicting upon women forced labor, human trafficking,
beatings, rapes, and gang rapes (Palmater, 2016). Women in the
Andes are often exploited in small-scale artisanal mining camps as
well, where they may be recruited to work in the camp and then
forced to sell their virginity to pay for transportation and lodging
costs (Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime,
2016). In these examples, the disproportionately negative impacts
of mining activities on women and girls are attributable to acts of
gender and sexual violence. However, I argue that the impacts of
mines on local livelihoods in the Andes is also likely to be
experienced differentially along gender lines given the role of
gender hierarchies in shaping social life in the Andes (e.g. Andolina
et al., 2009; Radcliffe, 2012a) and the gendered nature of livelihood
change in mining communities in other regions (Jenkins, 2014).
Racial hierarchies, as well as differences in class, age, religion, or
marital status, may also produce differentiated livelihood impacts
within communities or households impacted by mines (Perreault
and Valdivia, 2010; White, 2013).
Beyond attending more closely to social difference, I argue that
the mining-livelihood change literature synthesized in this article
would also be greatly enriched by comparing the impacts of
different types of mines on livelihoods. Increased attention to
different forms of mining in the Andes is important because of the
increasing prominence of state and cooperative mines in Bolivia
and artisanal mines in Peru and Ecuador as compared to foreign-
run operations (Achtenberg, 2016; Law, 2012). These commonly
smaller-scale mines have the potential to produce different
livelihood outcomes than larger-scale mines because, for example,
they may source their workforce more locally, operate with less
infrastructure and under less regulation, and have different
environmental impacts. These potential differences demand
critical comparison and analysis between the impacts of various
mining forms, which the literature to date has not sufficiently
addressed.
In this article, I first provide a brief overview of the geographical
and historical context of mining in the Andean region. I then
synthesize the current work on Andean mining-related livelihood
change, demonstrating that local livelihoods are altered primarily
by the impacts of mines on water quality and quantity, land tenure,
and new employment opportunities. Finally, I argue that the
mining-livelihood change literature would be enriched by (1)
studies which explore how power relations and social hierarchies
of gender, race, class, age, or religion shape and mediate mining-
induced livelihood changes, leaving some people in more
vulnerable and marginalized positions than others, and (2)
research that disaggregates mining into its specific forms, such
as foreign and/or privately-run, state-run, cooperative-run, or
artisanal, to explore how each form differentially impacts local
traditional livelihoods.
This article focuses specifically on Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.
Although neglected in this article, mining is also prevalent in the
Andes of Colombia and Chile. I delimit the geographic extent of this
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
analysis for two reasons. First, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador followed
relatively similar political-economic trajectories over the past
several decades, implementing structural adjustment programs
and allowing increased foreign investment in the 1990s following
the 1980s debt crisis. In contrast, Chile’s political economy has
been more closely tied to U.S. economists and neoliberal policies
since the 1970s (Harvey, 2005), and Colombia’s political economy
has been under greater U.S. influence under the premise of the war
on drugs (Livingstone, 2004). Second, the majority of studies on
changing livelihoods due to mining in the Andes has been
conducted in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, where indigenous,
campesino, and women’s protests over mining are highly visible
(Jenkins, 2015).
2. Mining in the Andes
Mining has shaped the Andean region’s economic, political, and
social relations since the colonial period. From the 16th–19th
centuries, Europeans extracted minerals from Latin America to
fund expansion, industrialization, and urban development in
Europe. 136,000 metric tons of silver accounting for 80% of global
silver production came from Latin America between 1550 and 1800
(Robbins, 2011). During the same time period, Europeans extracted
an estimated 1,685 metric tons of gold and 50,000 metric tons of
mercury from Latin America (Hylander and Meili, 2003; TePaske
et al., 1982). The extractive colonial relationship between Europe
and Latin America oriented Latin American economies around the
export of natural resources, a legacy which is still seen in the
region’s many resource-dependent countries.
Like other Latin American countries, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador
entered the 1980s after a 30-year period of Import Substitution
Industrialization (ISI), in which national policies limited foreign
trade and investment and attempted to build the national
industrial capacity to replace foreign imports (Green, 1999,
2003). However, the 1980s debt crisis ended this period of partial
isolation, as Andean countries accepted strict neoliberal austerity
measures facilitated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
World Bank that required them to globalize trade and attract
foreign investment in an effort to pay off their debt (Perreault and
Martin, 2005). The mining sector in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador,
which had been largely state-run during ISI, was privatized under
neoliberal policies, and foreign investors, including new investors
from China, began acquiring or forming mining operations in the
region (Bury and Bebbington, 2013). Himley (2012) identifies
neoliberal government policies which privatized and transnation-
alized the Andean mining sector as one of three key factors that
contributed to the dramatic growth of mining in the Andean region
since the 1990s. Increased demand for minerals on global markets,
especially from rapidly industrializing countries like Brazil, China,
and India, and advances in extraction and processing technologies
also contributed to the increase in mining activities (Himley, 2012).
The privatization and internationalization of the mining
industry in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador was rapid and extensive
in the 1990s and 2000s (BBC News, 2012). By 2006 the Peruvian
government had privatized 220 state-owned firms in the mining
and fuels industry, generating a capital flow of $9.2 billion
(Gurmendi, 2006). But while Peru has remained consistently
neoliberal in its policies (excepting perhaps a series of laws in 2011
and 2012 to increase taxes and regulations on mining), Bolivia and
Ecuador have elected governments which claim a departure from
neoliberal policies. Both Bolivian President Evo Morales elected in
2005 and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa elected in 2007
campaigned on the promise to recognize indigenous rights,
nationalize control over natural resources, and use the resulting
profit for social development projects (Humphreys Bebbington and
Bebbington, 2012). Morales’ and Correa’s policies and vocal
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
opposition to neoliberal globalization have garnered much
attention from researchers who see the political-economic climate
as anywhere from “postneoliberalism” (Peck et al., 2010) to “social
neoliberalism” (Zimmerer, 2013) to “neoliberalism interrupted”
(Goodale and Postero, 2013). These titles reflect researchers’
attempts to capture the significant regional policy shifts towards
more state control over production, distribution of revenues, and
creation of social programs, while simultaneously recognizing that
they do not represent a complete upheaval of neoliberal ideologies
(Humphreys Bebbington and Bebbington, 2012; Radcliffe 2012b;
Zimmerer, 2013). In fact, scholars question the extent to which
these new policies represent a break from neoliberalism, pointing
out, for example, that uneven patterns of revenue distribution from
mining in which most benefits accrue to population centers while
risks are borne by rural, indigenous communities appear to be
equal under neoliberal and “post-neoliberal” policies in the region
(Bebbington and Humphreys-Bebbington, 2011).
Despite continued neoliberal traits in Bolivia’s economy,
Morales' policies have led to shifts in mining ownership patterns,
reducing the role of transnational and corporate actors. Most
importantly, Morales nationalized several large mines and
supported the expansion of small, self-organized mining cooper-
atives; in fact, since 2006 concessions granted to mining
cooperatives have increased by more than 500% (Achtenberg,
2014). In Bolivia, privately-run mines comprise only 6% of the
mining workforce while cooperative-run mines comprise 88%.
State-run mines employ the remaining 6% of the workforce
(Achtenberg, 2014). Peru’s and Ecuador’s governments have not
embraced state- and cooperative-run mines to the same extent;
rather, they continue to facilitate the role of private, foreign
companies in extraction (Gurmendi, 2006). However, small scale
mining operations are increasing in both countries, particularly
informal, artisanal gold mining, which has grown considerably in
the past decade, producing approximately USD $2.6 billion a year
in Peru (Wagner, 2016). Artisanal mining is increasingly a source of
conflict and protests in Peru (Hill, 2016).
Today, Andean economies are considered to be largely resource-
based economies. Around 2/3 of both Bolivia’s and Peru’s and over
1/2 of Ecuador’s exports come from extraction (IMF, 2014; OEC,
2014). Mining concessions in all three countries have been granted
to foreign companies at considerably heightened rates since the
1990s; for example, land granted in mining concessions increased
from 14 percent to 70 percent in the Peruvian Amazon between
2004 and 2008 (Humphreys Bebbington and Bebbington, 2012).
Mining concessions throughout the Andes most often overlap with
indigenous territory, campesino (peasant) communities, and
headwaters of local water supplies (Bebbington, 2009), thus
putting at risk the livelihoods and well-being of many rural
indigenous and campesino. In Section 3, I examine the ways in
which mining is impacting Andean livelihoods.
3. Impacts of mining on livelihoods
At its most basic, a livelihood is “the means of gaining a living”
(Chambers, 1995, vi). Livelihood studies examine the economic,
social, and environmental conditions which together influence the
ability for an individual or household to make a living. Livelihoods
thus stand as an alternative to single-sector (e.g. wage income)
assessments of poverty and development (Scoones, 2009). Using
the livelihoods approach, researchers have shown how Andean
mines frequently impact communities by affecting the assets they
use to make a living, such as water sources for irrigation,
agricultural land, human health, and cohesive social networks.
It is important to distinguish between livelihoods as a concept
and the sustainable livelihoods framework, which was first
developed by the UK’s Department for International Development
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
3
and has since been adapted by various development agencies and
researchers to assess the sustainability of a given population’s
livelihoods. The framework is a tool which allows users to check off
appropriate boxes to determine how individuals in a community
access and use “livelihood assets” – such as human, social, natural,
physical, and financial capital – to achieve livelihood outcomes
(DFID, 1999). Critiques of livelihoods frameworks argue that their
implementation fails to adequately engage the social and political
relationships which shape livelihood activities and glosses over the
role of livelihood activities in creating and recreating systems of
meaning and identity for communities (Scoones, 2009; for an
exception see Bebbington, 1999).
However, many researchers with an interest in power relations
have still found the livelihoods concept, without the attendant
framework, useful. These researchers pay greater attention to how
livelihoods are embedded in webs of power, mediated by
institutions and actors, and actively contributing to the renegotia-
tion of meaning and subjectivity. For example, studies have
examined how access to livelihood assets is mediated by
legislation, policies, and resource administrations (Daur et al.,
2016); solidarity groups, churches, and development organizations
(Bebbington, 2001); indigenous organizing and identity politics
(Perreault, 2001); and environmental change caused by uneven
development (Rocheleau et al., 2001). The research synthesized
here uses the livelihoods concept to demonstrate that livelihoods
in the Andes are being transformed by the impact of mining on: (1)
water quantity and quality upon which livelihoods rely, (2) land-
tenure practices which facilitate land-based livelihoods, and (3)
the creation of new employment opportunities.
3.1. Impacts on livelihoods via water
Researchers studying the impacts of Andean mining consis-
tently find that mining causes water contamination, decreases
water availability, erodes systems of community water manage-
ment, and amplifies inequalities in water distribution and access
(see for example, Acosta and Martinez, 2010; Bebbington and
Williams, 2008; Bebbington et al., 2010; Sosa and Zwarteveen,
2012; Velásquez, 2012). In the livelihoods research, water is
perhaps the most prominent conduit for mining’s impacts upon
livelihoods.
Many Andean mines are located at the headwaters of local
water supplies which are used for personal consumption, for
irrigating agriculture and pasture land, and for watering livestock.
In Tual, a community neighboring the Yanacocha open-pit gold
mine in Cajamarca, Peru, Li (2009) shows that dairy farming,
traditionally the most important source of income, has declined
significantly because of reduced water quantity and quality in the
Tupac Amaru canal, which flows from headwaters on the
Yanacocha property. In 2002, waste rock deposit from the mine
contaminated Tupac Amaru. U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corp.
diverted the water, and replaced it with water from their treatment
plant. However, residents complained about yellowish specks left
on the grass after irrigating, a different taste, and reduced quantity
with the treated water. Dairy farming is heavily dependent on
water for irrigating pasture, watering cows, and processing dairy
products, and the lack of reliable water access caused many locals
to shift from dairy-based livelihoods to newly available employ-
ment in building infrastructure for mines, making lunches, or
providing transportation for mine workers. However, Li maintains
that these projects are generally short-lived. Of particular
importance, Li also highlights that these jobs are primarily given
to males in the community, whereas dairy farming is usually
handled by women. Therefore, the shift from dairy to alternative
livelihoods fundamentally alters women's contributions to house-
hold income and livelihoods.
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
4 K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Reduced water quantity and quality is also argued to cause
reduced fish catches, declining animal health, and dwindling
agricultural productivity for communities around Yanacocha and
the Japanese-owned Pallca mine in central Peru (Bury, 2007). In
both locations residents feel that their livelihoods are seriously
threatened by the mine’s impacts on limited water sources that
they use for livestock, crops, and personal consumption. Some
researchers are cautious to attribute livelihood change solely to the
impacts of mines, however. For example, although Hinojosa (2013)
found that mining reduced water quantity for households in four
communities in southern Peru, she suggests that the community’s
declining alpaca- and oregano-based livelihoods may be more
closely linked to falling market prices and low quality alpaca-fiber
than to reduced water access.
On Bolivia’s Huanuni River, the primary water source for
more than a dozen indigenous campesino communities, the
impact of tin mining is visible on the landscape: “upriver from
the [Huanuni tin] mine, the river’s waters are clean enough to
irrigate crops, but below the mine it flows gunmetal gray,
choked with sediment from the mine’s processing plant, and
laden with heavy metals, chemical pollutants, sewage and solid
waste” (Perreault, 2013, 1051). The high levels of pollution in the
Huanuni River from the mining operations upstream have made
the water unsafe not only for personal consumption, but also for
crop irrigation and livestock consumption. Perreault found that
74% of research participants reported having an animal sickened
and 47% reported having an animal die from drinking surface
water. The water quality impacts agricultural fields as well, as
toxins from the river settle on the riverbank during the rainy
season floods and are then carried by the wind to neighboring
fields during the dry season. Houses near the river are
surrounded by infertile and abandoned land. In Huanuni, “nearly
36% of households surveyed reported having no source of
freshwater, while over 64% indicated they [did] not have
sufficient water to meet their daily needs” (Perreault, 2013,
1061).
These studies demonstrate that by reducing water quantity and
quality in local communities, mines are fundamentally disrupting
local livelihoods. In particular, the effects on water alter agricul-
ture-, dairy-, and livestock-based livelihoods by causing health
problems for animals, reducing land productivity, and interfering
with irrigation. Land-based livelihoods are also disrupted by
changes to land tenure practices associated with mining, which I
address next.
3.2. Impacts on livelihoods via land tenure
As outlined in Section 2, mining concessions have increased
dramatically over the past 20 years, and the mines that are
eventually constructed upon these concessions are necessarily
spatially expansive (Perreault, 2013). Mines require ever expand-
ing territory to excavate for additional minerals, to dispose of slag
brought up in the mining process, and to sustain infrastructure
such as water treatment plants and roads. The process of
obtaining lands for these activities varies depending on the
region and whether land is owned privately or shared commu-
nally, but in most cases involves some form of displacement of
local residents.
At the Yanacocha gold mine, Newmont Mining expropriated
land and paid owners “fair-value” market prices of approximately
$80 per square hectare in 1993 (Bury, 2007). However, because of
rapidly rising property prices (now over $1000 per square hectare
near the mine), most landowners were never able to buy the same
amount of land again. Landowners who were paid for their land by
Newmont state that they felt pressured into selling, were paid poor
prices, and/or had their land sold by non-owners (Bebbington et al.,
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
2008). The displaced landowners moved to marginal lands and/or
tried to farm on less land, both of which lead to overgrazing and
soil degradation (Bury, 2007). Migration off the land also included
considerable farmer migration into the city of Cajamarca where
many have had difficulty finding jobs and continue to rely on the
farm production of relatives who were able to keep their land
(Steel, 2013). Further, Cajamarca is marked by increasing social
inequality between displaced farmers and migrants who have
arrived to work in management or professional jobs at Yanacocha.
For example, most mining elites send their children to the
international school, which is unaffordable for displaced farmers
(Steel, 2013). Due to several lawsuits surrounding their expropria-
tion processes, Newmont now negotiates with farmers to
determine sales prices (Bury, 2007).
In other regions such as the Cordillera Huayhuash, land is
shared communally rather than privately owned, particularly the
grazing land above the communities. Mitsui Mining’s Pallca
operations use community land for roads and treatment ponds
which affects the quality and accessibility of these lands. Mitsui is
required by law to pay land users for the mining operation’s
impacts on the land, but there has been considerable conflict over
negotiating these payments (Bury, 2007). Similarly, in El Pangui,
Ecuador, mining has further complicated an already tense system
of negotiations over land use and control between indigenous
Shuar and mestizo Colonos in the region. Warnaars (2013)
demonstrates that, for El Pangui residents, material delineation
of land is intertwined with symbolic struggles over what the land
means. Land ownership marks the position of each population in
the community and demonstrates their historical role in protecting
and using the land. As half the land in El Pangui’s district has been
acquired by Canadian mining company Corriente Resources, both
the Shuar and Colonos populations struggle to create new, non-
land-based claims for their positions and rights within the
community (Warnaars, 2013).
As these studies indicate, mining frequently constricts local
access to land, which has provided an important means for local
residents to make a living through agriculture, livestock raising,
and artisanal mining for generations. Further, changes in land
access impact meaning-making processes in mining communities.
By altering land tenure traditions, mining can fundamentally
transform how communities understand their ability to make a
living, their position within their community, and their ties to
place.
3.3. Impacts on livelihoods via new employment opportunities
A final theme in the mining-related livelihood change literature
centers around the arrival of new employment opportunities
triggered by mining operations. These new employment oppor-
tunities are often linked to a host of broader social changes which
impact the social and human capital assets individuals may draw
upon in their livelihood strategies. First and most obviously, the
arrival of a mine brings opportunities to work in the mine. Mining
work can serve as a way for local residents to diversify their
livelihood strategies; however, researchers frequently find that
mine work is temporary and that only the lowest-paying, most
dangerous jobs go to local residents (Gorriti, 2004; Li, 2009; Steel,
2013).
The labor required for mining has a secondary effect, however:
the in-migration of large numbers of mine workers from outside
the territory. Researchers have found that significant in-migration
has multiple effects. First, a group of elite professionals usually
arrive to manage the mine operations, monitor environmental
impacts, and serve in other professional positions. The highest
paying jobs within the mining operations go to these elite
professionals, and because of their wealth and social connections,
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
they have privileged access to social services such as elite
international schools (Steel, 2013). As such, the mines can be
seen to reinforce inequalities by increasing the wealth and position
of incoming mine workers while only providing low-paying jobs to
locals, which serves to entrench their position of poverty (Gorriti,
2004 in Bebbington et al., 2008). Second, in-migration to mining
towns is often associated with risks to social resources; in
particular communities often experience changes such as growing
theft, family dislocation and separation, and loss of cultural
traditions (Bury, 2007).
In addition to work in the mines, mining operations bring
employment opportunities outside the mines. For example, new
job opportunities usually become available in building infra-
structure such as roads and treatment plants and providing
transportation, lodging, and food to mine workers. As with work
in the mines, however, researchers voice concern about the
temporary nature of these projects and their (in)ability to offer
long-term livelihood strategies for residents (Hinojosa, 2013; Li,
2009). Increases in prostitution have also been noted in some
mining communities (Bury, 2007). While prostitution can provide
opportunities for financial independence, particularly for women,
it can also lead to human trafficking and place women in
dangerous or exploitable positions (Wagner, 2016). Importantly,
Anthias (2016) notes in her study of indigeneity and processes of
capitalization in the Bolivian Chaco that new employment
opportunities in road construction, security, and domestic work
associated with the boom in natural gas production have
reshaped household economies and gender dynamics. Although
Anthias is not focusing on mining-induced livelihood change in
her study, her remark on changing household gender dynamics in
the face of increased extraction indicates the potential for new
employment opportunities to result in livelihood changes that are
experienced differentially across gender, age, or other categories
of social difference.
3.4. Placing the livelihood-change literature in context
The literature linking Andean mining to transformations in local
livelihoods is empirically rich and makes significant contributions
to interdisciplinary studies of mining. Yet this literature inade-
quately deals with intra-community and intra-household social
difference as well as difference between types of mines, treating
the impacts of mining on livelihoods as largely uniform within
communities and across territory. Specifically, I argue that this
literature would be enriched by fieldwork that attends to how
livelihood transformations in Andean mining communities are
mediated by (1) social difference, such as gender, age, race,
religion, or sexual orientation and (2) different mining types
including foreign-run, state-run, cooperative-run, or artisanal
mining.
Attending to social difference requires rescaling the focus of
analysis to the household scale to explore how livelihood change is
differentially experienced by various members within communi-
ties and households in the Andes. Livelihood literature that
engages with social difference would build on recent environmen-
tal justice, feminist, and critical approaches to mining research in
Latin America. For example, environmental justice scholars argue
that mining most often hurts populations who are already socially
marginalized because of race, gender, or class and that these
populations tend to be further marginalized in decision-making
processes concerning mining operations (Urkidi and Walter, 2011;
White, 2013). Similarly, feminist and critical scholars highlight that
in the Andes mining is intertwined with particular ideologies of
modernity, respectability, and citizenship which restrict women’s
agency (Grieco, 2016; Jenkins and Rondón, 2015), exclude
marginalized populations from decision-making processes
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
5
(Perreault and Valdivia, 2010), and obscure indigenous communi-
ties’ struggles over land, livelihoods, and everyday life (Anthias,
2016). These scholars demonstrate that categories of social
difference are deeply intertwined with extraction in the Andes.
In Section 4, I use literature on gender, race, and indigeneity in
the Andes to show that power relations along axes of social
difference profoundly shape lived experiences in the Andes and
should be more carefully attended to in the mining-livelihood
change literature. I also draw on the gender and mining literature
to illustrate the potential insights a feminist approach could
contribute to our understanding of mining-related livelihood
change in the Andes. In Section 5, I use literature on mining in other
regions of the world to demonstrate that different forms of mining
(e.g. foreign-owned versus artisanal) can have significantly varied
impacts on the communities in which the mines are located. Given
the particularities of the Andean region, where policies are
currently being written to facilitate more (e.g. Bolivia) or less
(e.g. Peru) cooperative and artisanal mining, research into their
differential impacts would be immediately useful.
4. Attending to social difference
Although the literature on the mining-livelihood change nexus
has given minimal attention to intra-community and intra-
household power relations and social difference (excepting Li,
2009; Hinojosa, 2013), other bodies of research in the Andes have
powerfully demonstrated that gendered, raced, and classed power
dynamics shape the lived experiences of Andean people. In this
section, I draw from literature on how gender, race, indigeneity,
and age, among other social categorizations, shape experiences of
privilege and marginalization in the Andes. I do so in order to ask
questions about how these social differences might mediate the
experience of mining-caused livelihood change for various people
groups in the Andes.
Gender is one social category which is deployed in a way that
delimits material and symbolic experiences for people throughout
the Andes. For example, Grieco (2016) illustrates that women’s
activities are severely limited by ideologies of modernity in the
Andes which equate womanhood with motherhood and restrict
women’s agency to activities associated with ‘respectable’
motherhood. Similarly, in her study of Ecuadorian indigenous
women who beg or sell gum for livelihoods, Swanson (2010)
demonstrates that racist and patriarchal social hierarchies severely
limit indigenous girls and young women’s employment oppor-
tunities, making domestic work one of the few socially-acceptable
employment opportunities for them. Further, women anti-mining
protesters face public criticism and pressure from family to
abandon their activism, because activism positions them outside
socially acceptable roles for women in public space (Jenkins and
Rondón, 2015).
As an exception to the gender-blindness of most of the literature
presented in Section 3, Li’s study of dairy farming in Tual (2009)
emphasizes that the impacts of mining on local livelihoods are
gendered. Historically, women were primarily responsible for dairy
farming and were thus critical contributors to household incomes.
As dairy farming declined due in large part to water contamination
from the operation of the Yanacocha gold mine, women
increasingly lost their position as pivotal contributors. On top of
this, new employment opportunities in the mine, building
supporting infrastructure, or providing transportation to mine
workers primarily went to men in the community. Similarly
standing out as an exception within the literature, Hinojosa’s study
(2013) demonstrates that age also serves to mediate mining-
related livelihood change. In her study, young people were more
likely to work temporarily for the mine and save enough money to
move to a city to pursue education while the elderly were more
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
6 K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
likely to be tied to the land and less able to benefit from the arrival
of the mine.
The experiences, vulnerabilities, and political agency of
individuals in the Andes are also fundamentally shaped by
socially-constructed racial hierarchies, particularly for indigenous
groups (Andolina et al., 2009; Valdivia, 2005). Indigenous women
are often doubly marginalized due to their position within
intersecting race and gender hierarchies. For example, even
though development projects in the Andes since the 1980s have
prioritized attending to gender dynamics and women’s empower-
ment (Radcliffe, 2006), these projects rarely benefit indigenous
women due to their tendency to reinforce race and class privilege
(Radcliffe, 2012a). Yet, development projects intended to benefit
indigenous populations frequently sideline women in planning
and decision-making processes, thus leaving indigenous women
marginalized in both contexts (Radcliffe, 2012a).
These studies make evident the very real and powerful effects
of social hierarchies and difference in the Andean region where
mining is transforming livelihoods. Given their importance, I argue
that research on mining-induced livelihood changed in the Andes
should more thoroughly attend to social difference within and
across households and communities. My argument is further
supported by work on gender and mining in other regions of the
world, which suggests that mining often disproportionately
impacts women. As regards livelihoods, studies in other regions
suggest that because women are frequently responsible for
subsistence agriculture and raising livestock, they are particularly
affected by the environmental degradation of water and land
caused by mining (Bhanumathi, 2009; Bose, 2004; Eftimie et al.,
2009; Isla, 2002; Jenkins, 2014). Further, prostitution frequently
becomes an important livelihood option for women in mining
communities, as an influx of predominantly male migrant workers
into the mining community make it a lucrative option for poor
women whose traditional livelihoods are being disrupted (Perks,
2011). Finally, two studies of Andean mining suggest that mining
jobs available to women are primarily in surface-based waste and
mineral processing, jobs which are low-paying and include
exposure to dangerous chemicals (Ávila, 2005; Markland, 2012).
Given the importance of gender, race, age, and class in shaping
lived experience in the Andes, I suggest that employing an
intersectional approach would improve our understanding of how
intersecting social differences can work together to mediate
livelihood change in Andean mining communities. Much of the
research conducted by feminist political ecologists has employed
an intersectional approach for understanding the complex
hierarchies shaping environmental access, use, and control. For
example, Mollett and Faria (2013) demonstrate how gender, race,
age, and religion work together to shape the ability of Miskito
women in Honduras to maintain land tenure claims. Similarly,
Sultana (2009) shows that masculinity/femininity intersects with
class, age, and geographical location to shape material water access
in Bangladesh. Finally, Nightingale (2011) argues that practices of
cutting, gathering, and grazing in the Nepalese forest are shaped by
and continually (re)shape cultural categories such ‘woman’, ‘Dalit’,
and ‘Bahun’. These examples of an intersectional approach raise
questions for the Andean context about how power dynamics
surrounding social difference restrict access to livelihood assets
such as water, agricultural land, and non-farm employment
opportunities. Further, these examples raise questions about
how Andean social categories themselves are perhaps being
contested and (re)shaped alongside of and through material
livelihood changes. An intersectional approach to studying
livelihood change in Andean mining communities would provide
a deeper and finer-grained understanding of how livelihood
changes are experienced within the most severely-impacted
communities.
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
5. Attending to different forms of mining
As outlined in Section 2 of this article, mining in the Andes is not
uniform. Rather mines are run under a variety of different
ownership or operating structures. These consist of mines run
by private, usually foreign companies, the state government,
mining cooperatives, or individuals (artisanal). Many mines in the
region are operated by partnerships between private companies
and the state or between private companies and cooperatives. In
Bolivia, small-scale cooperative mining employs the largest
percentage of the workforce by a high margin (88%), but state-
run and privately-run mines still generate higher percentages of
the country’s exports than cooperative-run mines. And while
hydrocarbon exploration in Ecuador is largely conducted by large,
transnational corporations, virtually all gold mining activities at
the turn of the century were small-scale artisanal, involving an
estimated 20,000 people (Tarras-Wahlberg et al., 2003). In striking
contrast to the diversity of forms of mining operations evident in
the Andes, every study outlined in Section 3 of this article
examined the impacts of large-scale mines, and all but the state-
owned Huanuni mine in Bolivia were owned at least partially by
foreign transnational corporations. The limited attention to
smaller-scale cooperative and artisanal mines raises a host of
questions including: How do environmental and livelihood
impacts differ between communities effected by large and small
scale mines? What differences exist between how foreign-owned
and state-owned mines compensate landowners? Do cooperative-
run mines offer different employment opportunities than foreign-
or state-run mines?
Based on research done in other regions of the world, I
conjecture that there may exist considerable differences between
the livelihood impacts of artisanal or cooperative mining and the
livelihood impacts of large-scale, transnational mining. For
example, research in Africa suggests that in regions with artisanal
mining, local residents are very likely to participate in this mining
as part of a diversified livelihoods strategy (Banchirigah and Hilson,
2010). In contrast, large-scale, foreign-owned mining in the Andes
has provided only minimal work opportunities for locals (Gorriti,
2004; Li, 2009; Steel, 2013). Is artisanal mining more likely to
provide diversified livelihoods options to Andean communities
than private, large-scale mining? What employment opportunities
do large-scale mines create that artisanal mining is less likely to
provide? Further, both large- and small-scale mining often expand
into agricultural areas where property rights over community
lands are not formalized. Enforcement of laws to compensate for
land encroachment may differ between formal and informal
operations. Thus, artisanal, cooperative, state-run, and privately-
run mines may have different implications for property titling and
land-based livelihoods (Hinojosa, 2013). Comparison research
could begin to answer these questions.
It is also important to consider that the mining structure may
work in conjunction with axes of gender, age, race, and class to
shape differentiated experiences related to mining in the Andes.
For example, Markland (2012) shows that in Bolivia women have
some limited involvement in small-scale cooperative and state-run
mines, but are virtually never seen in a privately-owned mining
operation. This finding suggests that women’s relationships to
mine work as a household livelihood strategy may differ between
communities affected by foreign-owned mines versus state-
owned or artisanal.
Understanding the varying impacts of different mining forms
has direct policy implications. State governments in the region are
actively involved in trying to formalize and control artisanal
mining projects. For example, Peru’s 1992 General Mining Law
made no mention of small scale mining, but in 2002, the Toledo
administration passed the Law for the Formalization and
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Promotion of Small-Scale and Artisanal Mining, which sought to
promote small scale mining while simultaneously increasing
government involvement and monitoring. Since that time the
Peruvian government has increasingly sought to police artisanal
mining. For example, in 20111500 police and military officials were
sent to the Madre de Dios region to destroy mining equipment
associated with illegal mining (Law, 2012). Despite increased
policing, informal mining continues to pop up in new places
throughout the Peruvian Amazon (Hill, 2016). Similarly, the
Morales administration in Bolivia has supported cooperative
mines through loans and joint ventures (Achtenberg, 2014), but
following violent conflicts between cooperative miners and the
Bolivian state in August 2016, which resulted in the death of five
miners and the brutal killing of Bolivia’s Deputy Interior Minister,
Morales has sought to increase government control over the
cooperative sector (Achtenberg, 2016). Therefore, research attend-
ing to the differential impact of various mining structures could
have direct policy implications for the governments of Bolivia,
Peru, and Ecuador.
6. Conclusion
In this article, I have sought to synthesize a robust body of
literature examining the impacts of increasing mining activities on
local livelihoods in the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru, and
Ecuador. The research summarized here considers the diverse
assets individuals and households employ in various ways in order
to make a living, both materially and meaningfully, and how access
to those assets is mediated by a variety of political-economic
relationships and institutions. In examining the impacts of mining
on local communities through a critical livelihoods approach, the
research discussed in this article has highlighted a variety of ways
that mining has influenced local people’s ability to make a living. I
have organized these impacts into three primary categories. First,
mining operations in the Andes transform local livelihoods by
affecting the water quality and quantity upon which agricultural
and livestock-based livelihoods depend. Second, mining opera-
tions frequently displace local residents from farms and communal
grazing lands into cities or onto smaller plots of land, limiting their
ability to continue land-based livelihoods. Third, mining oper-
ations bring new forms of employment to communities, which
may provide new livelihood opportunities but are often temporary,
low-paying, and dangerous and may reinforce class divisions
within the community.
Synthesizing the mining-livelihood change literature also
reveals two gaps that would benefit from further research and a
deepened engagement with other theoretical perspectives. First, I
argue that research on the impacts of mining on livelihoods in the
Andes should consider how these impacts are mediated by
categories of social difference, which are themselves being
reshaped through the processes of livelihood change and the
arrival of mines. In particular, I suggest that a critical engagement
with intersectionality would deepen our understanding of how
these livelihood impacts are occurring. They are not experienced
universally by members of a community. Rather, gender, race, age,
and class mediate how different people experience livelihood
change. Further, an intersectional approach recognizes the fluidity
of identity categories and how material and environmental
transformations and practices lead to the (re)production and
(re)shaping of identity categories themselves (Nightingale, 2011;
Sultana, 2009). Thus, in the context of mining-related livelihood
change in the Andes, processes of material transformation are
likely intimately connected to processes of identity transforma-
tion.
Finally, I suggest that the mining-livelihood change literature
would also be enriched by disaggregating mining into the various
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
7
forms of mining operations in the Andean region. For example,
with the nationalizing policies of Bolivia and to a lesser extent
Ecuador, a comparison between the impacts of state-run and
privately-run mining operations could provide critical informa-
tion to policy makers as well as to scholars attempting to theorize
a “postneoliberal” turn in Latin America (for a review, see Yates
and Bakker, 2014). Additionally, the dramatic increase in
cooperative and artisanal mining in the region in the past two
decades (Achtenberg, 2014; Law, 2012) requires careful analysis
of the impacts of these types of mines on local livelihoods.
Analyses across mining forms are especially needed given that the
current research on mining-livelihood change focuses almost
solely on transnational, privately-run mining operations. A deep
and fine-grained understanding of how mining impacts local
community members’ livelihoods and well-being in the Andes is
critical for informing both mining policy and activists’ anti-
mining efforts in the region. Already the mining-livelihood
change literature is rich with in-depth, place-based empirical
work, but further attention to social difference within communi-
ties and households as well as comparisons between forms of
mining operations will make important contributions to this body
of research.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Ramzi Tubbeh, Megan Baumann, Eden
Kinkaid, Andria Aguilar, and two anonymous reviewers for their
feedback on early versions of this article. I would also like to
express gratitude to my doctoral advisor, Lise Nelson, for the
discussions, suggestions, and support that contributed significant-
ly to the development of this article. Any errors or omissions are my
own.
References
Ávila, E.C., 2005. La mujer en la pequeña minería de América Latina: el caso de
Bolivia. División de Recursos Naturales e Infraestructura, Santiago, Chile http://
repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/6280/1/S05111_es.pdf (Accessed
23 February 2017).
Achtenberg, E., 2014. Conflict over new Bolivian law highlights mining sector
contradictions. NACLA Rep. Am. http://nacla.org/blog/2014/5/9/conflict-over-
new-bolivian-law-highlights-mining-sector-contradictions (Accessed 23
February 2017).
Achtenberg, E., 2016. What’s behind Bolivia’s cooperative mining wars? NACLA Rep.
Am. http://nacla.org/blog/2016/11/23/what%E2%80%99s-behind-bolivia%E2%
80%99s-cooperative-mining-wars (Accessed 23 February 2017).
Acosta, A., Martinez, E. (Eds.), 2010. Agua: Un derecho humano fundamental. Abya-
Yala, Quito.
Andolina, R., Laurie, N., Radcliffe, S.A., 2009. Indigenous Development in the Andes:
Culture, Power, and Transnationalism. Duke University Press, Durham.
Anthias, P., 2016. Ch’ixi landscapes: indigeneity and capitalism in the Bolivian
Chaco. Geoforum doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.09.013 in
press.
BBC News, 2012. Timeline: Peru: A Chronology of Key Events. http://news.bbc.co.
uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1224690.stm (Accessed 18 August 2016)..
Banchirigah, S.M., Hilson, G., 2010. De-agrarianization, re-agrarianization and local
economic development: re-orientating livelihoods in African artisanal mining
communities. Policy Sci. 43 (2), 157–180. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11077-
009-9091-5.
Bebbington, A., Humphreys-Bebbington, D., 2011. An Andean Avatar: post-
neoliberal and liberal strategies for securing the unobtainable. N. Polit. Econ. 16
(1), 131–145.
Bebbington, A., Williams, M., 2008. Water and mining conflicts in Peru. Mt. Res. Dev.
28 (3/4), 190–195. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/mrd.1039.
Bebbington, A., Humphreys-Bebbington, D., Bury, J., Lingan, J., Muños, J.P., Scurrah,
M., 2008. Mining and social movements: struggles over livelihood and rural
territorial development in the Andes. World Dev. 36 (12), 2888–2905. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.11.016.
Bebbington, A., Humphreys-Bebbington, D., Bury, J., 2010. Federating and
defending: water, territory and extraction in the Andes. In: Boelens, R.,
Armando, G., Getches, D. (Eds.), Out of the Mainstream. Earthscan, London, pp.
307–327.
Bebbington, A., 1999. Capitals and capabilities: a framework for analyzing peasant
viability, rural livelihoods and poverty. World Dev. 27 (12), 2021–2044. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(99)00104-7.
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
8 K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Bebbington, A., 2001. Globalized andes? livelihoods, landscapes and development.
Cult. Geogr. 8 (4), 414–436. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/
096746080100800403.
Bebbington, A., 2009. The new extraction: rewriting the political ecology of the
Andes. NACLA Rep. Am. 42 (5), 12–20. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
10714839.2009.11722221.
Bhanumathi, K., 2009. Status of Women Affected by Mining in India. http://www.
samataindia.org.in/documents/Status%20of%20Women%20Affected%20by%
20Mining%20in%20India.PDF (Accessed 07 September 2016)..
Bose, S., 2004. Positioning women within the environmental justice framework: a
case from the mining sector. Gend. Technol. Dev. 8 (3), 407–412. doi:http://dx.
doi.org/10.1177/097185240400800305.
Bury, J., Bebbington, A., 2013. New geographies of extractive industries in Latin
America. In: Bebbington, A., Bury, J. (Eds.), Subterranean Struggles: New
Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America. University of Texas Press,
Austin, pp. 27–66.
Bury, J., 2007. Livelihoods, mining and peasant protests in the Peruvian Andes. J. Lat.
Am. Geogr. 1 (1), 1–19. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lag.2007.0018.
Chambers, R., 1995. Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts? ID Discussion
Paper. IDS, Brighton.
Department for International Development (DFID), 1999. Sustainable Livelihoods
Guidance Sheets. http://www.eldis.org/vfile/upload/1/document/0901/
section2.pdf (Accessed 07 September 2016).
Daur, N., Adam, Y.O., Pretzsch, J., 2016. A historical political ecology of forest access
and use in Sudan: implications for sustainable rural livelihoods. Land Use Policy
58 (15), 95–101. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.06.016.
Eftimie, A., Heller, K., Strongman, J., 2009. Gender dimensions of the extractive
industries: mining for equity. Extractive Industries and Development Series #8.
The World Bank.
Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 2016. Organized Crime and
Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America. http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/
uploads/2016/03/TGIATOC-OC-and-Illegally-Mined-Gold-in-Latin-America-
Report-1718-digital.pdf (Accessed 29 December 2016).
Goodale, M., Postero, N., 2013. Revolution and reentrenchment: illuminating the
present in Latin America. In: Goodale, M., Postero, N. (Eds.), Neoliberalism
Interrupted: Social Change and Contested Governance in Contemporary Latin
America. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp. 1–22.
Gorriti, G., 2004. Yanacocha: el campo y la mina. Ideele 166, 12–25.
Green, D., 1999. A trip to the market: the impact of neoliberalism in Latin America.
In: Buxton, J., Philips, N. (Eds.), Developments in Latin American Political
Economy: States, Markets and Actors. Manchester University Press, Manchester,
pp. 13–32.
Green, D., 2003. The Silent Revolution: The Rise of Market Economics in Latin
America. Latin American Bureau and Cassell, London.
Grieco, K., 2016. Motherhood, mining and modernity in the Peruvian highlands from
corporate development to social mobilization. In: Dhawan, N., Fink, E., Leinius,
J., Mageza-Barthel, R. (Eds.), Negotiating Normativity: Postcolonial
Appropriations, Contestations and Transformations. Springer, Switzerland, pp.
131–146.
Gurmendi, A.C., 2016. The Mineral Industry of Peru. U.S. Geological Survey Minerals
Yearbook – 2006, https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/2006/
myb3-2006-pe.pdf (Accessed 9 March 2017).
Harvey, D., 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, UK.
Hill, D., 2016. Gold Mining in Peru: Forests Razed, Millions Lost, Virgins Auctioned.
The Guardian 01 May 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/
andes-to-the-amazon/2016/may/01/gold-mining-in-peru-forests-razed-
millions-lost-virgins-auctioned (Accessed 23 February 2017).
Hilson, G., 2010. ‘Once a miner, always a miner’: poverty and livelihood
diversification in Akwatia, Ghana. J. Rural Stud. 26, 296–307. doi:http://dx.doi.
org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2010.01.002.
Himley, M.D., 2012. Mining (Andes). In: Beavis, S.G., Dougherty, M.L., Gonzales, T.
(Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability, vol. 8. The Americas and
Oceania: Assessing Sustainability, Berkshire, Great Barrington, MA, pp. 166–169.
Hinojosa, L., 2013. Change in rural livelihoods in the Andes: do extractive industries
make any difference? Community Dev. J. 48 (3), 421–436. doi:http://dx.doi.org/
10.1093/cdj/bst023.
Humphreys Bebbington, D., Bebbington, A., 2012. Post what? Extractive industries,
narratives of development and socio-environmental disputes across the
(ostensibly changing) Andean region. In: Haarstad, H. (Ed.), New Political Spaces
in Latin American Natural Resource Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London,
pp. 17–37.
Hylander, L.D., Meili, M., 2003. 500 years of mercury production: global annual
inventory by region until 2000 and associated emissions. Sci. Total Environ. 304
(1–3), 13–27. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0048-9697(02)00553-3.
IMF Survey, 2014. Natural Resources can Play a Key Role in Inclusive Growth. http://
www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/CAR032414B.htm?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+devj%
2Fimf+(IMF) (Accessed 07 September 2016).
Isla, A., 2002. A struggle for clean water and livelihood: Canadian mining in Costa
Rica in an era of globalization. Can. Woman Stud. 21 (4), 148–154.
Jenkins, K., Rondón, G., 2015. ‘Eventually the mine will come’: women anti-mining
activists’ everyday resilience in opposing resource extraction in the Andes.
Gend. Dev. 23 (3), 415–431. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
13552074.2015.1095560.
Jenkins, K., 2014. Women, mining and development: an emerging research agenda.
Extr. Ind. Soc. 1, 329–339. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2014.08.004.
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
Jenkins, K., 2015. Unearthing women’s anti-mining activism in the Andes:
Pachamama and the mad old women. Antipode 47 (2), 442–460 10.111/
anti.12126.
Law, P., 2012. Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Peru: A Blessing or a Curse?
Peru Support Group, London.
Li, F., 2009. Negotiating livelihoods: women, mining and water resources in Peru.
Can. Woman Stud. 27 (1), 97–102.
Ling, J., 2017. Blood and fire: mining and militarization in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Ecologist http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2988565/
blood_and_fire_mining_and_militarization_in_the_ecuadorian_amazon.html
(Accessed 23 February 2017).
Livingstone, G., 2004. Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War. Rutgers
University Press, New Jersey.
Markland, H.R., 2012. Opportunity and Participation for Women Mine Workers in
the Bolivian Altiplano. Unpublished thesis at Massey University, New Zealand.
Mollett, S., Faria, C., 2013. Messing with gender in feminist political ecology.
Geoforum 45, 116–125. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.10.009.
Nightingale, A., 2011. Bounding difference: intersectionality and the material
production of gender, caste, class, and environment in Nepal. Geoforum 42 (2),
153–162. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.03.004.
Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), 2014. Ecuador. http://atlas.media.mit.
edu/en/profile/country/ecu/ (Accessed 29 December 2016).
Palmater, P., 2016. Corporate conquistadors rape indigenous lands and bodies.
Telesur. 16 Aug 2016. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Corporate-
Conquistadors-Rape-Indigenous-Lands-and-Bodies-20160816-0011.html
(Accessed 23 February 2017)
Peck, J., Theodore, N., Brenner, N., 2010. Neoliberalism and its malcontents.
Antipode 41 (S1), 94–116. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-
8330.2009.00718.x.
Perks, R., 2011. Towards a post-conflict transition: women and artisanal mining in
the Democratic Republic of Congo. In: Lahiri-Dutt, K. (Ed.), Gendering the Field:
Towards Sustainable Livelihoods for Mining Communities. Australian National
University E Press, Canberra, pp. 177–196.
Perreault, T., Martin, P., 2005. Geographies of neoliberalism in Latin America.
Environ. Plann. A 37 (2), 191–201. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a37394.
Perreault, T., Valdivia, G., 2010. Hydrocarbons, popular protest and national
imaginaries: Ecuador and Bolivia in comparative context. Geoforum 41 (5),
689–699. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.04.004.
Perreault, T., 2001. Developing identities: indigenous mobilization, rural
livelihoods, and resource access in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Cult. Geogr. 8 (4),
381–413. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0967-46080100800402.
Perreault, T., 2013. Dispossession by accumulation? Mining, water and the nature of
enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano. Antipode 45 (5), 1050–1069. doi:http://dx.
doi.org/10.1111/anti.12005.
Post, C., 2016. Protesters set fire to mining camp in southern Peru. Peru Reports.
http://perureports.com/2016/10/19/protesters-set-fire-mining-camp-
southern-peru/ (Accessed 29 December 2016.).
Post, C., 2016. Peru police kill protester near Las Bambas copper mine. Peru Reports.
http://perureports.com/2016/10/15/peru-protester-killed-las-bambas-protest-
truck-routes/ (Accessed 29 December 2016.).
Radcliffe, S.A., 2006. Development and geography: gendered subjects in
development processes and interventions. Prog. Hum. Geogr 30 (4), 524–532.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0309132506ph624pr.
Radcliffe, S.A., 2012a. Dismantling gaps and myths: how indigenous political actors
broke the mold of socioeconomic development. Brown J. World Aff. 18 (2), 89–
102.
Radcliffe, S.A., 2012b. Developments for a postneoliberal era? Sumak kawsay, living
well and the limits to decolonisation in Ecuador. Geoforum 43 (2), 240–249. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.09.003.
Robbins, N.A., 2011. Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of
Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
Rocheleau, D., Ross, L., Morrobel, J., Malaret, L., Hernandez, R., Kominiak, T., 2001.
Complex communities and emergent ecologies in the regional agroforest of
Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic. Cult. Geogr. 8 (4), 465–492. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096746080100800405.
Scoones, I., 2009. Livelihoods perspectives and rural development. J. Peasant Stud.
36 (1), 171–196. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150902820503.
Sosa, M., Zwarteveen, M., 2012. Exploring the politics of water grabbing: the case of
large mining operations in the Peruvian Andes. Water Altern. 5 (2), 360–375.
Steel, G., 2013. Mining and tourism: urban transformations in the intermediate
cities of Cajamarca and Cusco, Peru. L at. Am. Perspect. 40 (2), 237–249. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0094582X12468866.
Sultana, F., 2009. Fluid lives: subjectivities, gender and water in rural Bangladesh.
Gend. Place Cult. 16 (4), 427–444. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
09663690903003942.
Swanson, K., 2010. Begging as a Path to Progress: Indigenous Women and Children
and the Struggle for Ecuador’s Urban Spaces. University of Georgia Press,
Athens, GA.
Tarras-Wahlberg, N.H., Hoffern, R., Bermeo, A., Lundberg, B., 2003. How beautiful is
small-scale mining? Evidence from small-scale and artisanal gold mining in
Ecuador. In: Hilson, G. (Ed.), The Socio-Economic Impacts of Artisanal and
Small-Scale Mining in Developing Countries. Taylor & Francis, Oxford, pp. 701–
716.
TePaske, J.J., Klein, H.S., Brown, K.W., 1982. The Royal Treasuries of the Spanish
Empire in America, vol. 1. Duke University Press, Peru, Durham, NC.
G Model
EXIS 306 No. of Pages 9
K.A. Brain / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Urkidi, L., Walter, M., 2011. Dimensions of environmental justice in anti-gold mining
movements in Latin America. Geoforum 42 (6), 683–695. doi:http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.06.003.
Valdivia, G., 2005. On indigeneity, change, and representation in the Northeastern
Ecuadorian Amazon. Environ. Plann. A 37 (2), 285–303. doi:http://dx.doi.org/
10.1068/a36182.
Valdivia, G., 2011. Petro-capitalism. In: Mulvaney, D., Robbins, P. (Eds.), Green
Politics: An A-to-Z Guide. SAGE Reference, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 312–314.
Velásquez, T.A., 2012. The science of corporate social responsibility (CSR):
contamination and conflict in a mining project in the southern Ecuadorian
Andes. Resour. Policy 37 (2), 233–240 10.1016.j.resourpol.2011.10.002.
Wagner, L., 2016. Organized Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America, 2016,
Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, http://globalinitiative.
net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/TGIATOC-OC-and-Illegally-Mined-Gold-in-
Latin-America-Report-1718-digital.pdf (Accessed 29 December 2016).
Please cite this article in press as: K.A. Brain, The impacts of mining on livelihoods in the Andes: A critical overview, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.03.001
9
Warnaars, X.S., 2013. Territorial transformations in El Pangui, Ecuador:
understanding how mining conflict affects territorial dynamics, social
mobilization, and daily life. In: Bebbington, A., Bury, J. (Eds.), Subterranean
Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America. University of
Texas Press, Austin, pp. 149–172.
White, R., 2013. Resource extraction leaves something behind: environmental
justice and mining. Int. J. Crime Justice 2 (1), 50–64. doi:http://dx.doi.org/
10.5204/ijcjsd.v2i1.90.
Yates, J.S., Bakker, K., 2014. Debating the ‘post-neoliberal turn’ in latin america. Prog.
Hum. Geogr. 38 (1), 62–90. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132513500372.
Zimmerer, K.S., 2013. Environmental governance through speaking like an
Indigenous State and respatializing resources: ethical livelihood concepts in
Bolivia as versatility or verisimilitude? Geoforum 64, 314–324. doi:http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.07.004.