Rethinking Extractivism in a Changing Climate: Complementary Gold and Coffee Livelihoods in the Steep,Tropical Andes

Abstract

In the municipality of Andes, agriculture rules the steep surface of la tierra, while informal miners pick and blast subterranean tunnels to make a living from gold. While a few residents perceived a dichotomy between farming and mining, our ethnographic research revealed that livelihood blending was far more common as people adapted to environmental changes brought by climate change. People inhabit and make a living out of the relations between coffee farms and mines, blurring common sense divisions between the two livelihoods. We argue that the verticality of this tropical region facilitates the co-existence of mining and farming, even as climate change drives transformations in the sociotechnical labor practices, environmental perceptions, and livelihood decision making that animate coexistence. Our research emphasizes that mining, too, can be generative of life worlds that encompass agriculture—a perspective that is missed in the blunt application of extractivism as an analytic tool.