Breaking Ground: From Extraction Booms to Mining Bans in Latin America (STUDIES COMPAR ENERGY ENVIRON POL SERIES)

From cave-ins and lung diseases to toxic sludge and water contamination, mining operations create a host of social and environmental problems, now including climate change. Breaking Ground tells the story of mining conflicts in Latin America, where ore extraction has become a big business. Based on a decade of research in gold mining towns, corporate headquarters, and legislative chambers, Rose J. Spalding develops a new interpretation of how mining operations secure government approval while also unpacking the circumstances under which anti-mining mobilizations come out on top. This innovative study of the mining sector's rise and fall answers persistent questions about the political logistics shaping the future of resource extraction.

Rose J. Spalding is Professor of Political Science at DePaul University, where she specializes in the study of Latin American social movements and political economy. She is the author of Contesting Trade in Central America: Market Reform and Resistance; Capitalists and Revolution in Nicaragua: Opposition and Accommodation, 1979-1993; and The Political Economy of Revolutionary Nicaragua. Spalding's research has been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, Fulbright, and the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame University, among others. She is a founding contributor to the Research Group MEGA (Mobilization, Extractivism, and Government Action) at Tulane University.