The Open Cut ─ Mining, Transnational Corporations and Local Populations

The rapid expansion of the mineral and metal mining sector in the past decade was accompanied by an increase in social conflicts. What are the impacts of large-scale mining operations? What are the strategies used by transnational corporations to gain access to underground resources and legitimize their activities? And how do local and indigenous communities confronted with mining react to, negotiate with and resist these activities? This book covers 13 case studies of copper, gold, uranium and other mining operations, situated in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Switzerland. With an extensive introduction to the subject and a systematic comparison across mining operations in different phases of development and social contexts, it serves as a primer and reference book for activists, students and researchers alike. Thomas Niederberger is Social Anthropologist and a board member of infoe CH. Tobias Haller is Extraordinary Professor for Economic and Ecological Anthropology at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern. Helen Gambon is researcher at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern. Madlen Kobi is a researcher at the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich. Irina Wenk is a lecturer at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich.