(iPoster) Non-Formal Mining in the Amazon: Relations among Miners, State, and Communities

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries & Occupation, Memory, and National Identity
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Developing Countries

Abstract

How do relations between miners, subnational state authorities, and civil society develop in non-formal mining extraction? Since 2020, informal and illegal gold mining has spread in Latin America. In Peru, it operates in across the country, including the Amazon region. While studies on non-formal gold mining in indigenous territories have increased in recent years, they focus on cases where informal entrepreneurs and artisanal miners are the main extractors, as in Madre de Dios in the southern Amazon region. These conditions generate specific models of relationships between these economic actors, the state, and local communities. However, over the past two years, illegal gold mining has spread to the rivers of northern and central Amazon regions. In these regions, criminal organizations employ mixed strategies to control and influence the state, as well as relations of control and conflict with local communities. Considering both types of gold mining (in the south and in the north-central regions), this paper examines the relationships between mining operators, the state, and local communities. I argue that in Southern Amazon, a mixture of informal mining operators, whether on rock or alluvial mining, develops political networks and formal representation at the subnational and national state level and have broader support for local communities, while in the Central and Northern Amazon criminal organized groups lead the alluvial mining engaging with state and communities by non-formal strategies of control and influence.

Author

• Omayra Pena Jimenez, Tulane University