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Oral Presentation Session
Reviewed by: American Ethnological Society
Primary Theme: Ethics
Secondary Theme: Labor
Mining companies increasingly frame their extractive activities in ethical terms. The diffuse concept of corporate social responsibility can include sustainability, transparency, women’s empowerment, the prevention of child labor and more. Companies are also at pains to demonstrate that the minerals they extract are “conflict free” and that their profits do not fuel civil strife in the places where they operate. Corporate claims about ethical extraction often purport to benefit the communities where they work. However, the communities often suffer as a result of mining activities. They may be displaced from their lands or see the natural environment on which they depended be degraded or destroyed. Members of these communities may also be the companies’ greatest competitors, working informally and often illegally to extract the same minerals as the corporation. Even the violent extirpation of these local communities is often described in ethical terms.
This panel will explore corporate ethical discourses in the mining industry. How do companies frame their activities as ethical or sustainable? How are these ideas of responsible extraction certified by consultants and auditors, often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? We will also examine how these ideas are challenged. Journalists, human rights lawyers, international NGO’s, national governments, local civil society groups, churches, miners and even ethnographers have all called corporate ethical discourses into question. These discourses are often held in deep suspicion by people who trade gemstones and other mineral commodities. The papers are based on research conducted in mining camps, and gem trading centers, but also in corporate headquarters and the offices of consultancy companies. It brings together perspectives from Africa, South Asia, Latin America, Melanesia and Europe. It will examine the paradoxes and oxymorons of ethical, sustainable and responsible extraction.
This panel will explore corporate ethical discourses in the mining industry. How do companies frame their activities as ethical or sustainable? How are these ideas of responsible extraction certified by consultants and auditors, often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? We will also examine how these ideas are challenged. Journalists, human rights lawyers, international NGO’s, national governments, local civil society groups, churches, miners and even ethnographers have all called corporate ethical discourses into question. The papers are based on research conducted in mining camps, but also in corporate headquarters and the offices of consultancy companies. It brings together perspectives from Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Europe. It will examine the paradoxes and oxymorons of ethical, sustainable and responsible extraction.
Matthew Nesvet
Ph.D. Candidate & Lecturer
University of California, Davis
Brian Brazeal
Associate Professor of Anthropology
California State University, Chico
Brian Brazeal
Associate Professor of Anthropology
California State University, Chico
Brian Brazeal
Associate Professor of Anthropology
California State University, Chico
Rita Kesselring
Senior Lecturer / Fung Global Fellow
University of Basel / Princeton University
Mareike Winchell
Assistant Professor
University of Chicago
Emma Lochery
University of Liege