The current discourse on mine closure is informed predominantly by industry and corporate perspectives and predicated by experiences of mainly mining companies that are based in developed countries where necessary planning frameworks and regulatory requirements are well-established. Mine closure planning, well promoted and accepted as good business practice in the global minerals industry, has been primarily technical and precautionary both in approach and focus. Planning, modelling and monitoring strategies incorporate comprehensive and detailed elements such as properties inherent in landforms, climate, geology, flora and fauna, among others. However, locality-based concerns that revolve around resource access and tenure, rights and entitlements tied to locality and indigeneity, labour recruitment, and other non-bio-physical elements are hardly examined. Any mine closure program that omits these elements is deficient and therefore ineffective. Social Terrains of Mine Closure in the Philippines, based on ethnographic research and archival materials, presents the varying experiences of three mines to demonstrate that the mine closure process is an intense locus for competition and compromises among various social actors. This book offers key messages for understanding the complex socio-cultural, economic, political, and business realities that make up the social terrains of mine closure, and will be of great interest to students and researchers in development studies, community development, business studies, anthropology, and sociology. It will also appeal to those working in the global minerals sectors and NGOs that engage in development work and advocacy for responsible mining.

This book investigates the relationship between mining, mine closure and housing policy in post-apartheid South Africa, using concepts from new institutional economics and evolutionary governance theory. Mine closures present a major challenge to the mining industry and governments, with this being particularly noticeable in the Global South. This book argues that the dependencies created by the mining industry and mine housing policies while a mine is operational cause serious societal problems when it closes. To demonstrate this, the book applies the concepts of place attachment, asset-based development and social disruption. Conceptually, the book challenges the view that place attachment and asset-based development are the most appropriate and often the only policy responses in mining areas. In South Africa, the mining industry and the government have created comprehensive housing programmes linked to homeownership to promote place attachment, stability and wealth among mine workers. These programmes do not consider the disruption that mine closure might bring. The book challenges the blind application, during boom periods, of policies which create long-term dependencies that are difficult to manage when a mine closes. This book will be of interest to students and scholars researching the social impacts of mining and the extractive industries, social geography and sustainable development, as well as policymakers and practitioners working with mine closure or social impact assessments.

This book investigates mine closure and local responses in South Africa, linking dependencies and social disruption. Mine closure presents a major challenge to the mining industry and government policymakers globally, but particularly in the Global South. South Africa is experiencing notable numbers of mine closures, and this book explores the notion of social disruption, a concept often applied to describe the effects of mine growth on communities but often neglecting the impact of mine closures. The book begins with three theoretical chapters that discuss theory, closure cost frameworks and policy development in South Africa. It uses evolutionary governance theory to show how mining creates dependencies and how mining growth often blinds communities and governments to the likelihood of closure. Too easily, mining goes ahead with no concern for the possibility, or indeed inevitability, of eventual closure and how mining communities will cope. These impacts are showcased through eight place-based case studies from across South Africa, one focusing on mine workers, to demonstrate that mine closure causes significant social disruption. This book will be of interest to students and scholars researching the social impacts of mining and the extractive industries, social geography and sustainable development, as well as policymakers and practitioners working with mine closure and social impact assessments.

This book explores how bauxite mining has affected local and national political dynamics in Guinea over the past 55 years, providing an overview of mining interactions with social, economic and political spheres. Guinea is amongst the world’s top producers of bauxite, and the country’s rich mineral presence has numerous implications on local communities and national policy. Guinea is an interesting and highly relevant case study in assessing the impact of bauxite mining on regime stability and social insecurity. The author offers a clear understanding of the role of mining during the Touré and Conté regimes and analyses how changes since the election of Condé in 2010 have affected the socio-political and economic development of Guinea. The author also offers analysis on how bauxite mining has led to the emergence of new forms of social contracts, sustained by mining companies instead of the state. Finally, the book argues that understanding the stabilising and destabilising potential of mining is key to ensuring long-term, sustainable, stable and inclusive growth of mineral-resource-rich countries. The book concludes by highlighting the relevance of the findings in Guinea for the wider African extractives sector. The book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including those working in the areas of African studies, political science, political economy, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. The book will be relevant for academics, business actors, NGOs, policy-makers and students interested in the African mining sector.

The current discourse on mine closure is informed predominantly by industry and corporate perspectives and predicated by experiences of mainly mining companies that are based in developed countries where necessary planning frameworks and regulatory requirements are well-established. Mine closure planning, well promoted and accepted as good business practice in the global minerals industry, has been primarily technical and precautionary both in approach and focus. Planning, modelling and monitoring strategies incorporate comprehensive and detailed elements such as properties inherent in landforms, climate, geology, flora and fauna, among others. However, locality-based concerns that revolve around resource access and tenure, rights and entitlements tied to locality and indigeneity, labour recruitment, and other non-bio-physical elements are hardly examined. Any mine closure program that omits these elements is deficient and therefore ineffective. Social Terrains of Mine Closure in the Philippines, based on ethnographic research and archival materials, presents the varying experiences of three mines to demonstrate that the mine closure process is an intense locus for competition and compromises among various social actors. This book offers key messages for understanding the complex socio-cultural, economic, political, and business realities that make up the social terrains of mine closure, and will be of great interest to students and researchers in development studies, community development, business studies, anthropology, and sociology. It will also appeal to those working in the global minerals sectors and NGOs that engage in development work and advocacy for responsible mining.

This book uses a multimethod approach to examine local experience of contemporary mining development in the Peruvian Andes, creating an understanding of the transformations that rural societies experience in this context. Mining is a major component of economic growth in many resource endowed countries, whilst also causing mixed social, cultural, and environmental effects. Most current literature on contemporary mining in Peru is largely focussed on conflict; however, in this text, the author takes a differing approach by examining the experiences of families in the vicinity of Rio Tinto’s La Granja exploration copper project, Northern Peru, an area with great significance due to the mining investment and development, which has taken place over the past 25 years. The book first provides a critical discussion about production of space theories, and debates on spatial mobility, highlighting their relevance to understanding large-scale mining developments, especially in the Peruvian Andes. The following chapters analyze spatial transformations mining development has prompted, focusing on four axes: access to space, production, mobility, and representations of space. A comprehensive narrative is constructed drawing on diverse voices and perspectives, including those of family heads and their partners, local leaders, company employees, and social scientists. The book concludes by discussing how the findings challenge some of the current accounts of the social effects of mining developement on rural communities and pose significant implications for sustainable development programs and place-based practices. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book will appeal to a wide audience including geographers, social anthropologists, and social scientists interested in the social effects of mining as well as researchers interested in current Latin American Studies and Rural Development.

The frontiers of extraction are expanding rapidly, driven by a growing demand for minerals and metals that is often motivated by sustainability considerations. Two volumes of International Development Policy are dedicated to the paradoxes and futures of green extractivism, with analyses of experiences from five continents. In this, the first of these two volumes, 16 authors offer a critical and nuanced understanding of the social, cultural and political dimensions of extraction. The experiences of communities, indigenous peoples and workers in extractive contexts are deeply shaped by narratives, imaginaries and the complexity of social contexts. These dimensions are crucial to making extraction possible and to sustaining its expansion, but also to identifying possibilities for resistance, and to paving the way for alternative, post-extractive economies. This volume is accompanied by IDP 16, The Afterlives of Extraction: Alternatives and Sustainable Futures.

This book offers an overview of the key debates in the burgeoning anthropological literature on resource extraction. Resources play a crucial role in the contemporary economy and society, are required in the production of a vast range of consumer products and are at the core of geopolitical strategies and environmental concerns for the future of humanity. Scholars have widely debated the economic and sociological aspects of resource management in our societies, offering interesting and useful abstractions. However, anthropologists offer different and fresh perspectives – sometimes complementary and at other times alternative to these abstractions – based on field researches conducted in close contact with those actors (individuals as well as groups and institutions) that manipulate, anticipate, fight for, or resist the extractive processes in many creative ways. Thus, while addressing questions such as: "What characterizes the anthropology of resource extraction?", "What topics in the context of resource extraction have anthropologists studied?", and "What approaches and insights have emerged from this?", this book synthesizes and analyses a range of anthropological debates about the ways in which different actors extract, use, manage, and think about resources. This comprehensive volume will serve as a key reading for scholars and students within the social sciences working on resource extraction and those with an interest in natural resources, environment, capitalism, and globalization. It will also be a useful resource for practitioners within mining and development.

While much of the current research on the extractive industries and their socio-environmental impacts is region specific, Resource Extraction, Space and Resilience: International Perspectives critically explores the current state of the extractive industries sector from a uniquely global perspective. The book introduces a more dynamic idea of sustainability in evaluating mineral extraction and its impacts, and provides a spatialized understanding of the evolution of the extractive industries to help visualise the interlinkages across space, regions and scales. Professor Kotilainen responds to these theoretical challenges by analysing the potential for resilience of mining activities from multiple perspectives across scales, exploring why it is only possible to achieve temporary balance and stability for the whole resource extraction system. Taking a global perspective, the book explores the interlinkages of the industry, investigates the similarities and differences in how the industry operates and examines the social and environmental impacts it has. By providing an explicitly theoretically informed analysis of the state of the extractive industries, this text will appeal to a wide range of scholars with an interdisciplinary interest in the extractive industries and natural resource management, including human geographers and social scientists with a focus on the relations of humans and societies with their physical environments.

Mining is a transformative activity which has numerous economic, social and environmental impacts. These impacts can be both positive and adverse, enhancing as well as disrupting economies, ecosystems and communities. The extractive industries have been criticised heavily for their adverse impacts and involvement in significant social and environmental scandals. More recently, these industries have sought to respond to negative perceptions and have embraced the core principles of sustainability. This sector could be regarded as a leader in sustainability initiatives, evident from the various developments and frameworks in mining and sustainability that have emerged over time. This book reviews current topical issues in mining and sustainable development. It addresses the changing role of minerals in society, the social acceptance of mining, due diligence in the mining industry, critical and contemporary debates such as mining and indigenous peoples and transit worker accommodation, corporate sustainability matters such as sustainability reporting and taxation, and sustainability solutions through an emphasis on renewable energy and shared-used infrastructure. Written by experts from Australia, Europe and North America, but including examples from both developed and developing countries, the chapters provide a contemporary understanding of sustainability opportunities and challenges in the mining industry. The book will be of interest to practitioners, government and civil society as well as scholars and students with interests in mining and sustainable development.