Digging Out from Neoliberalism: Responses to Environmental (Mis)governance of the Mining Sector in Latin America

Abstract

For many communities in rural Latin America, foreign-owned natural resource extraction operations represent the face of neoliberalism. Such operations, arriving on the wave of the privatization and investment liberalization that swept the continent beginning in the 1980s, have radically reshaped local political and cultural dynamics while in most cases generating relatively little direct benefit to local communities. They have also generated environmental impacts that will permanently alter the livelihoods of these communities. Concerns about these impacts and the perceived lack of local benefit from largely foreign-owned resource extraction have sparked growing popular resistance across Latin America. This resistance has contributed both directly and indirectly to the downfall of governments and has put into question the continued viability of extractive sectors in some countries.