An ethnography of entanglements: Mercury’s presence and absence in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Antioquia Columbia

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dc.citation.issue1
dc.citation.volume15
dc.contributor.authorRobertson T
dc.contributor.authorFarrelly T
dc.date.available23/08/2018
dc.date.issued23/08/2018
dc.description.abstractThis paper describes a ‘follow the thing’ methodology as applied to an ethnography of entanglements. This methodology allowed for a materially and politically nuanced understanding of Antioquia, Colombia’s response to mercury pollution. This pollution primarily originates from the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) industry where mercury is employed in the gold extraction process. In following the mercury, the authors experiment with an ethnography of entanglements. The paper discusses how they address the current lacunae in mining ethnographies by focussing on mining as ‘practice’, going past the provision of technical descriptions of mining and ethnographic descriptions of miners to an ethnography of mining. This ethnographic approach considers the politics of materiality and addresses a lack of attention to the impacts of the presence and absence of materials on social life. Various mining practices in Antioquia illuminate how entanglements between miners and mercury have been co-constitutive of particular modes of ASGM. The paper will also provide examples of ‘negative mercury entanglements’ where efforts have been made to extricate mercury from mining practices. Rather than creating a vacuum, these mercury absences have been generative of new contested symbolic and material arrangements including entrepreneurial and ‘responsible’ mining, debates over miners’ rights, and the creation of new political relationships between ASGM and large-scale mining companies.
dc.description.confidentialFALSE
dc.format.extent38 - 69
dc.identifierhttps://sites.otago.ac.nz/Sites/article/view/349
dc.identifier.citationSITES: a Journal for South Pacific Cultural Studies, 2018, 15 (1), pp. 38 - 69
dc.identifier.doi10.11157/sites-id349
dc.identifier.eissn1179-0237
dc.identifier.elements-id423815
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn0112-5990
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10179/14706
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherAssociation of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand with assistance from the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Otago
dc.publisher.urihttps://sites.otago.ac.nz/Sites/article/view/349
dc.relation.isPartOfSITES: a Journal for South Pacific Cultural Studies
dc.relation.urihttps://sites.otago.ac.nz/Sites/article/view/349/423
dc.subjectfollow the thing
dc.subjectethnography
dc.subjectentanglements
dc.subjectmercury
dc.subjectmining
dc.subjectartisanal gold mining
dc.subjectsmall-scale mining
dc.subject.anzsrc1601 Anthropology
dc.subject.anzsrc1608 Sociology
dc.subject.anzsrc2002 Cultural Studies
dc.titleAn ethnography of entanglements: Mercury’s presence and absence in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Antioquia Columbia
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/School of People, Enviroment and Planning
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